i  1V71 


,c 

i  l 


.vlOS-ANCElfj> 


1    1 


% 

e         cd 

1     3 


^/JJHAlNIHttV9 

^u»Ancaa^ 

I/O— I 


1 

I   1 


<       S 


%OJI1V>JO^ 
^OF-CAllFOft^ 


.       . 


s   ^ 


%       4f 


I     jTi  ir^ 


«    I 


o  « 
<TJ130NVS01^        ^ 


,,         v>:lOS-ANCEt% 
&      ^    — 


6    g 


^UBRARYOc.         ^EUNIVER% 


s    e 


I    1 


\\EUNIVEB 


^lOS-AHCElfx^ 


I    § 


**v 


THROUGH 


EXCUESION 

• 
j 

THE   SLAVE   STATES, 


WASHINGTON  ON  TIIE  POTOMAC  TO  ME  FROSTIER  OF  MEXfCO;  WITH  SKETCHES 
OF  POPDUR  MANNERS  AND  GEOLOGICAL  -NOTICES. 

.*• 

BY 

G,  W,  *FEATHERSTONHAUGH,  F.R.S.,  F.G.S 

- 

.*        * 


• 

. 

NEW-YORK:^ 

PUBLISHED    BY    HARPER    &    BROTHERS, 

No.  82  CLIFF-STREET. 


1844. 


I 


»- 


CONTENTS. 


2.1*0 


toTHODDCTiox Page  5 

CHAPTER  I. 

Barnum's  Hotel  at  Baltimore — Canvas-back  Dncks — Soft 
Criibs  ;  the  Process  of  changing  their  Shells— Railroad 
to  Fredericton  in  Maryland — Impositions  practised  upon 
Travel lers — Notices  of  the  Geology  of  the  Country — 
Hnrper's-ferrv ;  the  Shenandoah  Valley— Nationality  of 

the  Germanico- Americans 11 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ascent  of  the  first  Alleghany  Ridges — A  dandy  Rattle- 
snake— Magnificent  View  across  the  Alleghanies  from 
Warm  Springs  Mountain — Affecting  Reception  at  the 

Hotel  of  the  Warm  Springs 15 

CHAPTER  III. 

A  Virginia  Hotel  in  the  Mountains— A  dancing  Landlord 
—  Incomparable  Beauty  of  the  Warm  Baths —  Their 
gaseous  and  solid  Contents — The  Hot  Springs — Curious 
Effect  produced  upon  them  by  an  Earthquake — Geologi- 
cal Structure  of  the  Ridges— View  of  the  Alleghaniea 

and  the  Warm  Springs  Valley 17 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  celebrated  White  Sulphur  Springs— Mr.  Anderson,  a 
Character — Description  of  this  Watering  Place — Beauty 
of  the  Alleshany  Mountain— Our  various  Adventures  at 
a  Blacksmith's  Boarding-house  and  Alatrnna  Row — An 
old  Lady  nnkes  a  double  Somerset — Our  Removal  to 

Compulsion  Row 21 

CHAPTER  V. 

State  of  Society  at  Compulsion  Row — Fine  Flavour  of  the 
Oysters  at  New  Orleans. — Priv  ite  Cabins  at  the  Springs 
—A  Cyclopean  Kitchen— Merciful  Plan  of  Killing  Bul- 
locks with  the  Rifle — Extr  lordlnary  Performances  at 
Dinner— Mr.  Wright's  Shanty  in  the  Woodsy-Generals 
who  have  never  been  Soldiers — The  Ferryman  and  the 

Traveller  without  a  Title 25 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  System  of  Allegheny  Ridges  caused  hy  an  Upheaval 
from  below,  and  the  White  Sulphur  Springs  a  Conse- 
quence of  the  Movement  —  Gaseous  Contents  of  the 
Waters  — White  Rock  Mountains  — Horizontal  Fossil- 
iferous  Strata  in  place  .  ....  29 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Paying  beforehand  as  bad  as  not  piying  all — Journey  to  the 
Sweet  Springs — Be-mtv  of  the  Country — Gaseous  and 
solid  Contents  of  the  Waters— Remarkable  Dam  formed 
of  Travertine — Ancient  Travertine  350  feet  above  the 
Level  of  the  present  Spring",  probably  derived  from  them 
before  the  Valley  existed— Proofs  of" the  ancient  Surface 

being  lowered 31 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Depart  on  foot  ocross  the  Mountains  to  Fincastle — Decidu- 
ous and  evergreen  Trees  alternating  with  the  Soil— Fin- 
cadtle,  a  V'rginia  Town— Mr.  Jefferson  the  Confucius  of 
the  United  States— Free  thinking  and  Universal  Suffrage 
Irs  grand  Nostrums  for  good  Government — A  patriotic 
Proposition  to  blow  Virginia  "iky-high"  to  save  its  Con- 
stitution—Botetourt  Sprines— A  Cmnp  of  Negto  Slave- 
drivers— The  Cottie  of  SUves  crosses  New  Rivf>r  0111- 
acled  and  fettered — The  Negro  drivers  in  mourning .  34 
CHAPTER  IX. 

Can«e  nf  some  ConfiHon  in  the  Designation  of  the  Alle- 
ehany  Ridges  explained — A  Duck  shooting  Landlord — 
Arrive  at  Abinedon— Account  of  Saltville— Geology  of 
the  Valley  and  surrounding  Country— Visit  to  King's 
Cove,  a  singular  basin  in  Clinch  Mountain,  the  residence 
of  an  Outlaw— His  account  of  the  Panthers  and  Wild 
Cat  Accoucheurs— Strata  of  the  Clinch  Mountain  .  39 
CHAPTER  X. 

A  plens-iDt  Party  in  a  Stage  Coach — Arrive  at  Blountsville 
in  the  Stnte  of  Tennessee—  Fists  versus  Dirks  and  Pis- 
tols—Kno.vville— Meet  President  Jackson  .  .  43 
CHAPTER  XI. 

A  Negro-driver  in  mourning  for  a  great  Patriot— Irrever- 
ence of  a  Negro  to  a  White  Man's  Ghost— Bivouac  of  a 
Cans  of  chnineil  Slave*— An  agreenhle  and  lively  fel- 
low-passenger—Cro-w  the  Cumberland  Mountains— Ar- 
rive at  Sparri  —  A  Driver  killed  — Hickory  Valley- 
Mound*  and  Graves  of  the  Indians  that  formerly  dwelt 
here — Imaginary  Pigmy  Race 46 


CHAPTER  XH. 

Indian  Practice  of  burning  the  Underwood  to  enable  the 
Natives  to  pursue  the  Game— The  Aboriginal  Races  t» 
be  traced  by  their  Mounds — General  Jackson's  Planta- 
tion, the  Hermitage — His  Character  by  a  Neighbour — 

Arrival  at  Nashville Page« 

CHAPTER  Xni. 

Description  of  Nashville — The  College — Professor  Troost 
— The  Baptist  Preacher  and  the  Rattlesnakes — Affinity 
betwixt  certain  Mexican  Idols  and  others  found  in  Se- 
quatchee  Valley  in  Tennessee— Public  Spirit  of  the  lead- 
ing Men  of  Tennessee — Mr.  Ridley,  one  of  the  earliest 
Settlers— His  Adventures— Indian  "Attack  upon  a  stock- 
aded Fort— Heroic  conduct  of  Mr.  Ridley's  Daughter- 
Murder  of  White  Children  by  the  Savages,  and  unmiti- 
gable  Hatred  of  the  Whites  to  them  ....  51 
CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  religious  Sect  of  the  Campbellites — Order  of  Priest- 
hood confined  to  handsome  young  Fellows — Geology  of 
this  part  of  Tennessee — Section  of  the  Country  made  by 
the  Cumberland  River  for  300  miles — Remsrkable  an 
cient  Bed  of  broken  Shells-Harpeth  Ridge— Unios  of 

the  Western  Waters 55 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Leave  Nashville— The  Barrens  of  Kentucky— The  Mam- 
moth Cave— First  View  of  the  Ohio  River— Arrival  at 
Louisville— Falls  of  the  Ohio— Henry  Clay,  his  great 
Popularity— Captain  Jack  of  the  Citizen  Steamer,  a  most 
catavvampous  Navigator — Public  Indifference  to  the  loss 
of  Life  in  new  Countries — Explanation  of  "a  Sin  to 

Crockett" 58 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Leave  Louisville,  and  take  to  the  Stage-Coach  again — Dif- 
ference betwixt  the  Manners  of  Slave  and  Free  States — 
Vincennes  in  the  State  of  Illinois— Old  Race  of  French. 
Canadians  there  —  Beauty  of  the  Prairies  —  Horizontal 
Coal  Seams  in  the  Bnnks  of  the  Rivers — Grouse — An- 
cient Bed  of  the  Mississippi  seven  miles  broad— The 
Town  of  St.  Louis  in  the  State  of  Missouri— Col.  Smith 
of  the  British  Army — "  Running  a  Negro"  explained — 
Jefferson  Barracks ;  admirable  Management  of  a  regi- 
mental Fund  —  Vuide  Poche  and  Pain  Court  —  A  group 

of  thirty  Barrows 62 

i       CHAPTER  XVII. 

A  remarkable  Barrow— The  monuments  of  the  Ancient 
Red  People  analogous  to  those  of  the  Old  Races  in  Eu- 
rope— Probable  Cause  of  the  Diversity  in  Indian  Dia- 
lects—A  petrified  Forest— Society  at  St.  Louis— More 
Bolting  at  the  Table  d'Hdte— Fur-trappers  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains — Excellent  Markets  at  St.  Louis — Money  the 
real  Object  of  Life      .        .       .  .       .        .66 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Purchase  a  Waggon— Old  French  Town  of  St.  Charles  on 
the  Missouri— Linden  Grove— Origin  of  the  Mounds- 
Customs  of  the  Osage  Indians  69 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Departure  from  St.  Louis — The  Comforts  of  an   Indian 

Matrimonial  Alliance— Tame  Buffiiloes—  Herculaneu 

in  America— Immense  flocks  of  Cranes— History  of  Mr 

Gallatin— Vallee's  Mines  ..... 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Taptitt  and  Perry's  Lead  Mines  —  Geology  of  the  Lead 
District— System  of  Galeniferou>  Veins— Their  Struct- 
ure analogous  to  the  Trap  Veins  at  T">rernNh  in  Scot- 
land— Farmington — Visit  to  the  Iron  Mountain        .    75 
CHAPTER  XXI. 

Mine   la  Motte  —  Veins  of  Galena  di-aurhed  by  electric! 
Matter—  Earthquake  »t  New  Madrid  i:,  1811— Freder 
town— A  Judge's  Encomium  on  the  Mi.-s  uri  Bar- 
ther  Stories — Greenville— Fan;  at  an  opulent  Mi 
Fmner's—  Life  of  a  Squatter—  How  to    -bring  u( 
Sovereign  People— Bear  Oil  Currency— Scene  in  a 

ofJuslice 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Big  Black  River— First  Appearance  of  Parroqueets- 
and    Buffalo  — Little  Black  River— A   Disa^.-r,  and  a 
Niehv  in  the  Woods— Ivory -billed  wood  peckers,  a 'id  < 
of  the  Sovereign  |ie»ple  unable  to  hold  the  reins  of  < 
ernment— A  Forest  on  Fire— The  Currant  River. 


iv 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  xxm. 


The  "  Military  Road"— Eleven-Mile  Point  River-Obliging 
Conduct  of  Widow  Newland  — The  Advantage^  of 
"camping  out"  —  Our  front  and  hind  Wheels  quarrel; 
the  hind  Wheels  turn  back  — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Meri wether 
—Two  suspicious  Travellers— Murder  of  Mr.  Childers— 
Extraordinary  Spectacle  produced  by  wild  Pigeons  — 
Bury  the  remains  of  Mr.  Childers  .  .  .  Page  85 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Description  of  White  River— Judge  Tucker's  Cabin;  his 
Account  of  the  Murder  of  Childers— Account  of  the  first 
Judge  Lynch,  and  the  state  of  Legal  Practice  in  his 
Court— A  successful  Speculation  in  Lead— Clock  Ped- 
lars insinuating  Persons  — White  River  Mountain  —  A 

Ruffian  of  the  first  order 88 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Little  Red  River— A  distressed  Family  of  Emigrants— A 
new  kind  of  Grist-mill— Black  Wolves— A  wild  Ameri- 
can Scene  —  Reach  the  Arkansas  River  —  A  Tavern  at 

Little  Rock 92 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

State  of  Society  at  Little  Rock— Don  Jonathan— The  Rev- 
erend Mr.  Stevenson — Newspapers  versus  the  Bible — 
Governor  Pope  and  his  Lady— The  Laws  of  Honour  at 
Little  Rock— A  Duel  in  the  Dark— A  Bully  killed— A 
College  of  Faro  and  Rouge  et  Noir — Arkansas  Legisla- 
tors—The Speaker  murders  a  Member  in  the  body  of 

the  House— His  Trial 94 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Apology  for  the  Manners  of  Arkansas — Manner  of  living 
at  Little  Rock — Aversion  to  Shutting  the  Doors — Ter- 
tiary Deposit  —  Alluvial  Bottoms,  and  the  Species  of 
Plants  growing  there — Visit  to  the  Mauimelles — German 
Emigrants — Geology  of  .the  Mammelle  Mountain — Enter 
'  an  immense  Swampy  Plain— Danger  of  travelling  with- 
out a  Guide — Some  apprehension  of  being  obliged  to 
treat  the  Wolves— Reach  a  House  .  .  .  .  £9 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

A  Concert  of  Wolves— Ancient  Bed  of  the  Arkansas — An 
Arkansas  Honeymoon — Method  of  crossing  a  Bayou — 
.  Depirt  from  Little  Rock  for  the  Hot  Springs  of  the 
Washita— Explanation  of  a  "Turn-out" — Stop  at  the 
best  Hotel  on  the  Road—"  Nisby"  and  her  "  Missus"— 
Stump  Handle  and  Company — A" fastidious  Judge — Gov- 
ernor Shannon's  Hotel — A  Jury  de  circumstantibus  102 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Arrive  at  Magnet  Cove— An  interesting  Mineral  Locality- 
Strange  effects  of  a  Hurricane— Reach  the  Hot  Springs 
— Whittington  without  his  Cat— Rare  Accommodations 
•-Description  of  the  Sprirtgs— Fishes  in  Hot  Water- 
Temperature  and  Gaseous  Contents  of  the  Hot  Springs 
— The  Travertine  presents  different  Constituents  below 

the  Surface 107 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

Curious  and  beautiful  Mineral  Structure  of  the  adjacent 
Country  —  Locality  whence  the  Indians  procured  the 
Mineral  for  their  Arrow  Heads  — An  unsophisticated 
"Bar-hunter"  — Panthers  fond  of  Buffalo  Tongues  — 
Strange  single  Combat  betwixt  a  Hunter  and  a  male 
Buffalo— Reasoning  Power  of  the  Animal— State  of  the 
Hunter's  Nerves  after  the  Battle  ....  110 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Leave  the  Hot  Springs — Regain  the  "  Military  Road,"  and 
cross  the  Washita— How  to  drink  Coffee  made  of  Acorns 
— The  Caddo  River — Mrs.  Barkman,  her  extraordinary 
Accomplishments — A  Hunter's  House  and  Family — Ter- 
tiary Deposits  —  A  travelling  Courthouse  —  A  Knot  of 
Gamblers— A  Paddy  going  to  Texas  .  .  .113 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Bear-hunting — Approach  a  suhcretaceous  Country — Judge 

Cross— Dlsh.;tc,{  Territory  betwixt  Mexico  and  the  Uni- 

:  ieu  States— A  Prairie  Country  and  subfeticeous  Fossils 

—General  Houston— Plot  to  wrest  Texas  from  Mexico 

—Beauty  of  the  Country lw 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Probable  Origin  of  Prairies— Lund  most  attractive  when 
to  be  obtained  without  payi  ig  for— Mr.  Prior-Great 
Abuse  of  the  Government  Lai  d  Sales— An  Oasis  in  the 
Wilderness— Contrast  between  the  educated  and  unedu- 
cated Classes— Two  patriotic  Members  of  the  Sovereign 

People.        .  no 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Mr.  Williams;  his  Adventures-blunder  of  the  Mexican 
Government— Reach  Red  River— Cross  into  the  Mexican 
Province  of  Tevas— Lost  Prairie,  a  beautiful  tract  of 
Lund— Surprising  Crop  of  Cotton  in  a  field  of  3IK)  acres 
—The  Abolition  of  Slavery  a  hopeless  Case— The  future 

—Wild  Muscadel  Grape 123 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
Course  and  ancient  Channels  of  Red  River— The  Great 


Raft— Method  adopted  of  cutting  it  out— Danger  to  which 
New  Orleans  is  exposed— Fight  betwixt  a  Man  and  a 
Panther— Triigical  Story  of  a  Hunter-Comical  Relation 
of  a  Solo  played  by  a  Negro  to  a  Gang  of  Wolves— Fos- 
sil Oysters  in  the  Saline  ....  Page  125 
CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Reach  Little  Rock  again— A  pleasant  Christmas  Eve- 
Embark  in  a  Steamer  for  New  Orleans— A  painful  Mo- 
ment—Structure of  the  Banks  of  the  Arkansas— Snags 
and  Sawers  explained— Frequent  Change  of  the  Chan- 
nel of  the  River— Cotton  Plantations— Cause  of  the  Va- 
riegated Structure  of  the  Banks  explained  .  .  128 
CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Approximative  Method  suggested  of  calculating  the  Age 
ot  Fluvbtile  Deposits— Brutal  Conduct  of  the  Passen- 
gers—The Uuapaw  Indians  a  Tribe  of  the  Osages— 
Monsieur  Baraque,  his  Adventures — A  young  Vagabond 
—Post  of  Arkansas— Monsieur  Notre  be— The  River  en 

croaching  upon  the  Country 132 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

The  Steamer  boarded  by  Swindlers— Pandemonium  afloat 
—Day  and  Night  Orgies— A  Mysterious  Lady— Printed 
Rules  to  Decoy  Passengers — White  River — Reach  the 
Mississippi— Arrive  at  Vicksburg— Mr.  Vick  and  his 
brother  Gentlemen — Worse  and  worse — Compliments  to 
the  Captain  of  a  Steamer  by  the  Gentry  of  Vicksburg— 
A  View  of  the  Grand  Gulf— Reach  Natchez— A  happy 
Deliverance  of  the  Swindlers  — Judge  Lynch  in  the 
State  of  Mississippi— Arrive  at  New  Orleans  .  .135 
CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

The  Delta  of  the  Mississippi— Shirtings  of  the  Channel  of 
the  River — Formation  of  new  Land  at  its  Mouth — Visit 
the  Cemeteries— Mede  of  contriving  drv  Graves— Pirati- 
cal-looking Population— Green  Peas  out  of  doors,  Jan.  1 
— Li:erature  and  the  Sciences— New  Orleans  American- 
ised—Sunday Evening  Meetings  —  Faro  the  principal 
Business  transac:ed  in  New  Orleans— The  Legislature 

in  Session— Good  Theatres 139 

CHAPTER  XL. 

Quadroon  young  Ladies,  their  hard  fate  —  Liaisons  of  a 
Hal  de  Sucictc—An  amiable  Father  of  several  Families 
—Good  Prospect  for  the  Anglo-Episcopal  Church— Span- 
ish Cathedral— Depart  from  New  Orleans— A  Railroad 
—Embark  in  a  Steadier  for  Mobile— A  Storm— A  Bishop 
on  Board— Come  to  an  anchor— The  Bay  and  River  of 
Mobile — Tokens  of  Commercial  Activity — Beauty  and 
Cleanliness  of  the  town  of  Mobile— Spanish  Creoles— 

The  Bolero 141 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

Embark  in  a  Steamer,  and  ascend  the  Mobile  and  Ala- 
li-ima — Tertiary  Ite|K>sits  at  Fort  Claiborne — Great  Fer- 
tility of  the  State  of  Alabama— Aptitude  of  the  Creek  In- 
dians for  Labour — Reach  Montgomery,  in  Alab.ima  — 
Filthiness  of  the  "  principal"  Ho:el— Engage  a  carriage 
to  cross  the  Indian  Territory —  Country  inundated  — 
Cross  the  Oakfuskee  and  enter  the  Creek  Nation  .  144 
CHAPTER  XLII. 

Description  of  the  Muscogee  or  Creek  People  —  Their 
Sachem,  M'Gillivray— Their  Treaties  with  the  Ameri- 
can Government— The  Chiefs  Corrupted  hy  the  Georgi- 
ans—Weathei  ford,  the  Sachem  of  the  Lower  Creeks, 
attacks  and  massacres  the  Garrison  at  Fort  Mimms — 
General  Jackson  takes  the  Field — Fatal  Battle  of  Toho- 
peka,  or  the  Horse  Shoe  —  Weatherford's  Heroic  Con- 
duct—M'lntosh  hetravs  his  Countrymen,  and  is  shot— 
The  Creeks  compelled  to  cede  all  their  Country— Apol- 
ogy for  the  Whites 145 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 

The  Ruins  of  a  Nation— Kateeliee  Swamp— A  Turkey  im- 
plumis — Emigrants  with  their  Slaves  —  Phlebotomy  — 
Diamond  Rattle  Snakes— Reach  Columbus,  in  Georgia 
—Falls  of  the  Chatahoochie— Leave  Columbus— Obser- 
vations upon  the  Family  of  Naiades — Arrive  at  Augusta 
—  Railroad  to  Charleston,  in  South  Carolina — Reach 

Columbia,  in  South  Carolina 151 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 

The  Gentlemen  of  America— The  Tariff  and  Nullification 
—Wise  Conduct  of  Mr.  (May  and  Mr.  Ca I houn— Warlike 
Propensities  of  an  Octogenarian  philosopher — A  black 
animal  chained  on  the  roof  of  a  Stage-coach — The  char- 
acter of  the  White  Man  elevated  by  the  Slavery  of  the 

Black  one 155 

CHAPTER  XLV. 

Inside  and  Outside  Pascengers  in  Chains — Bob  Chatwood 
and  the  Game  of  All  Fours — A  social  Bottle — An  Over- 
turn in  the  dark — Reach  Charlotte,  in  North  Carolina — 
Description  of  the  Gold  Region  in  North  Carolina  and 
Virginia— Richmond,  in  Virginia— The  Chesterfield  Coal- 
field—Speculations respecting  it  .  .  .  .158 


CONCLUDING  CHAPTB 


.164 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  River  Potomac,  from  its  source  to 
its  moulh,  in  the  great  Bay  of  Chesapeake, 
divides  the  Atlantic  frontier  of  the  United 
States  of  America  into  two  unequal  parts  ; 
and  being,  with  the  exception  of  the  State 
of  Maryland,  the  boundary  betwixt  the 
southern  slave-holding  states  and  the  free 
states  to  the  north,  may  be  said  to  form  a 
line  of  demarcation  betwixt  their  industrial 
pursuits,  their  laws,  and  their  manners. 

To  that  portion  which  lies  to  the  south 
of  this  line  the  attenion  of  travellers  has 
been  much  less  drawn  than  to  that  exten- 
sive division  of  the  American  Republic 
which  lies  to  the  north  and  west ;  and  it  is 
to  supply,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  want  of 
information  which  exists  respecting  some 
portions  of  the  southern  states,  that  the 
author  has  drawn  up  the  following  pages. 

It  was  during  an  interesting  tour  in 
1834 — 1835  from  the  city  of  Washington 
to  the  frontier  of  Mexico,  and  whilst  in  one 
of  the  unfrequented  and  wild  parts  of  the 
territory  of  Arkansas,  that  he  communica- 
ted some  account  of  those  remote  coun- 
tries, and  the  manners  of  the  frontier  set- 
tlers, to  a  distinguished  scientific  friend  in 
London,  which  not  long  after  led  to  the  an- 
nouncement, by  the  late  Mr.  John  Murray, 
of  a  work  substantially  the  same  as  the 
present  publication.  But  the  author,  who 
was  at  that  time  residing  in  the  United 
States,  had  scarcely  prepared  it  for  the 
press,  when  he  was  induced,  upon  the  ad- 
vice of  some  American  friends  of  great  re- 
spectability, to  reconsider  his  intention  of 
publishing.  It  was  remarked  to  him,  that 
however  sincerely  he  might  wish  to  avoid 
giving  umbrage  in  any  quarter,  yet  that  the 
work  contained  some  opinions,  and  the  re- 
lation of  some  incidents,  which  could  not 
at  that  time  fail  to  irritate  a  powerful  inter- 
est in  the  United- States,  and  might  set  him 
at  variance  with  many  esteemed  friends. 
As  this  counsel  came  from  a  friendly  and 
judicious  quarter,  he  determined  rather  to 
suppress  the  work  for  a  season,  than  to  ex- 
punge the  passages  objected  to;  and  he 
was  the  less  reluctant  to  make  this  sacri- 
fice, because,  intending  to  return  to  his  na- 
tive country,  he  could  look  forward  to  a 
period  when  he  could  express  with  perfect 
freedom  any  opinions  that  were  on  the  side 
of  humanity,  of  rational  liberty,  and  the 
moral  government  of  mankind. 

On  his  return  to  England  in  the  spring  of 
1839,  his  intention  of  devoting  a  portion  of 
his  time  to  the  recording  of  a  few  of  the  in 


cidents  of  a  somewhat  adventurous  life, 
thirty-six  years  of  which  had  been  passed 
in  various  countries  abroad,  was  again  post- 
poned. Within  two  months  after  his  ar- 
rival he  was  honoured  by  Her  Majesty's 
government  with  the  appointment  of  Com- 
missioner on  the  then  existing  boundary 
dispute  betwixt  Great  Britain  and  the  Uni- 
ted States  of  America — an  appointment, 
the  official  duties  of  which,  if  they  had  not 
engrossed  all  his  attention,  would,  from  ob- 
vious considerations,  have  rendered  it  at 
that  time  unadvisable  to  act  upon  his  first 
intentions. 

Freed,  at  length,  from  that  restraint,  the 
author  has  again  taken  up  his  manuscript, 
and  having  well  considered  the  incidents 
and  sentiments  contained  in  it,  and  finding 
nothing  there  that  can  be  deemed  objec- 
tionable by  those  who  are  only  desirous  to 
have  the  truth  placed  before  them,  he  has 
at  length  resolved  upon  its  publication ;  as- 
suring his  readers  that  it  is  a  faithful  and 
almost  literal  transcription  from  his  origi- 
nal journals,  the  incidents  of  the  tour  hav- 
ing always  been  noted  from  day  to  day,  and 
the  journal  having  been  regularly  written, 
up  at  least  once  a  week. 

That  some  of  the  opinions  these  inci- 
dents elicited  at  the  time  may  not  be  re- 
ceived with  the  same  favour  by  all  those 
under  whose  notice  they  may  come,  is  very 
likely  to  be  the  case  ;  for,  in  our  day,  the 
field  of  English  literature  embraces  an  ex- 
tensive and  populous  region  of  America, 
where  sentiments  are  cherished  respecting 
the  rights  of  men,  both  black  and  white, 
that  are  diametrically  opposed  to  them. 
The  author,  nevertheless,  ventures  to  sub- 
mit to  the  candour  of  those  transatlantic 
readers  he  may  not  have  the  good  fortune 
to  please,  that  in  all  countries  where  free- 
dom of  opinion  is  not  an  illusion,  but  is  real 
and  substantial,  there  are  acknowledged 
privileges  which  every  fair  writer  can  claim 
to  enjoy,  amongst  the  plainest  of  which  are 
the  describing  truly  what  he  sees,  and  the 
expressing  freely,  but  not  presumptuously, 
his  opinions  of  what  he  has  seen. 

Of  the  enterprise  and  industry  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States,  of  the  wonderful 
progress  they  have  made  in  material  civi- 
lization, of  the  great  beauty  of  their  coun- 
try, and  of  the  many  desirable  things  to  be 
there  admired  and  enjoyed,  no  one  is  dis- 
posed to  bear  more  favourable  testimony 
than  the  author :  yet,  however  heartily  an 
Englishman  may  be  disposed  to  commend 


INTRODUCTION. 


these  excellencies,  so  national  and  sensi- 
tive are  the  inhabitants  of  that  young  coun- 
try, that  if  he  ventures  upon  the  invidious 
task  of  pointing  out  those  peculiarities  in 
the  laws  and  manners  of  Republican  Amer- 
ica which  he  cannot  be  brought  to  admire, 
he  feels  that  he  may  not  escape  the  impu- 
tation of  intending  to  offend,  even  when  he 
•would  express  in  the  most  temperate  lan- 
guage his  opinions  of  what  neither  his  taste 
jior  his  judgment  can  approve.  This  ex- 
treme sensitiveness — which  is  never  awa- 
kened in  America  by  the  remarks  of  French 
or  German  writers — had  its  origin  perhaps, 
with  our  transatlantic  kinsmen,  in  their 
anxiety  about  an  ideal  perfection,  of  which, 
in  virtue  of  their  affinity  to  the  mother- 
country,  her  laws,  literature,  and  religion, 
that  flattered  themselves  they  had  attained 
the  enjoyment.  Looking  at  the  delusion 
from  that  point,  we  can  only  regret  that  it 
should  have  deceived  a  people  endowed 
•with  many  eminent  qualities,  into  a  con- 
firmed habit  of  placing  an  estimate  upon 
themselves,  which  has  yet  to  receive  the 
sanction  of  mankind.  Sensible  and  amia- 
ble as  many  of  the  Americans  are,  the  fa- 
vourable impression  they  make  upon  those 
•who  visit  their  country,  is  too  soon  over- 
powered by  the  characteristic  illiberality 
of  others  who  assume  for  it  an  excellence 
.which  admits  of  no  criticism ;  and  so  ex- 
acting is  the  tyranny  of  self-adulation,  that, 
except  in  the  most  select  society,  the  stran- 
ger is  often  compelled  to  be  either  a  hypo- 
crite or  a  mute. 

If  we  were  to  condemn  the  American 
who  visits  England  for  denying  that  the  su- 
perior civilization  he  witnesses  there  is 
to  be  attributed  to  our  monarchy,  our  dis- 
tinctions in  society,  and  the  high  moral  ex- 
amples which  are  the  result  of  our  social 
institutions,  he  might  with  some  reason 
consider  us  ill-bred  and  illiberal.  Obvious 
as  these  truths  might  be  to  ourselves,  he 
could  not  with  propriety  be  asked  to  admit 
these  consequences,  since  it  would  be  to 
require  him  tacitly  to  condemn  the  coun- 
try which  nursed  him,  and  where  he  im- 
bibed all  his  cherished  opinions.  In  the 
United  States,  however,  it  is  not  an  uncom- 
mon thing  for  an  Englishman  to  be  told 
that  his  government  is  superannuated,  cor- 
Tupt,  and  profligate  ;  and,  indeed,  the  same 
sentiments  are  too  often  expressed  in  a 
more  offensive  manner  even  in  the  Con- 
gress.* Greatly  as  these  extravagancies 
are  to  be  deplored,  and  deserving  of  cen- 


*  Vide  Mr.  Archer's  speech,  March  18,  1844,  in  the  Sen- 
mte  of  the  United  States.  "Mr.  Archer  repeated  that  he 
felt  grieved  and  humiliated  at  the  temper  and  the  tone  in 
•which  gentlemen  permitted  themselves  to  speak  hereof  the 
G»vernmeut  of  Great  Britain.  Mr.  A.  was  not  here  to  vin- 
dicate that  Government,  but  still  less  was  he  here  to  pour 
out  upon  it  all  the  obloquy  and  vituperation  which  our  lan- 
guage could  express,  as  the  vilest  and  most  faithless  Gov- 
ernment under  heaven.  The  name  of  England  seemed  as  if 
it  could  never  be  uttered  or  referred  to  without  some  terms 
«f  obloquy  or  reproach."— National  Intelligencer. 


sure  as  they  are,  yet  they  do  not  justify  us 
in  cherishing  an  undiscriminating  dislike 
towards  the  inhabitants  of  the  country 
where  they  are  uttered,  although  they  sug- 
gest many  reflections  upon  the  causes 
which  have  made  the  descendants  of  com- 
mon ancestors  so  dissimilar  to  each  other. 
It  is  not  to  be  concealed,  nevertheless, 
that  this  frequent  expression  of  aversion  to 
the  mother-country,  added  to  the  late  noto- 
rious violations  of  the  most  solemn  engage- 
ments from  the  same  quarter,  have  raised 
a  strong  and  deep-rooted  prejudice  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  which,  although  natu- 
ral, is  to  a  certain  extent  unjust,  because 
there  is  little  or  no  discrimination  observed 
in  it.  The  United  States  have  not  always 
deserved  the  reproaches  they  have  now 
drawn  upon  themselves ;  in  the  early  part 
of  the  history  of  their  government  public 
decorum  was  highly  valued  and  universally 
practised,  and  American  credit  only  eight 
years  ago  stood  as  high  all  over  the  world 
as  the  credit  of  any  other  country.  The 
change  has  been  a  great  and  an  unhappy 
one  both  for  America  and  for  Europe,  and 
if  this  were  an  occasion  for  tracing  its 
causes  step  by  step,  the  author,  who  has 
long  watched  its  progress,  would  not  de- 
spair of  accomplishing  the  task.  Suffice  it 
to  observe,  at  this  time,  that  the  sad  degra- 
dation has  been  gradually  produced  through 
the  arts  of  demagogues  operating  in  the 
different  States,  rather  than  by  the  action 
of  the  federal  government,  which,  although 
the  constant  object  of  political  intrigue,  has 
generally  been  administered  with  prudence 
and  dignity. 

To  trace  all  the  incidents  that  character- 
ise the  Americans  at  the  present  time  to 
their  remote  sources,  we  should  have  to 
look,  amongst  other  things,  to  their  geo- 
graphical position,  and  to  the  period  when 
their  colonies  were  planted ;  for  all  com- 
munities of  men  are  distinguished  from 
each  other  by  peculiarities  derived,  more 
or  less,  from  those  institutions  of  govern- 
ment which  local  situation  as  well  as  ori-  • 
gin  have  imposed  upon  them.  The  Amer- 
icans, though  descended  from  them,  are  ' 
very  dissimilar  to  the  English,  and  the  de- 
scendants of  our  settlers  in  New  Zealand 
will  be  far  from  resembling  the  Americans. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  centu- 
ry the  exclusive  object  of  the  mother-coun- 
try in  colonizing  foreign  countries,  was  to 
open  sources  of  wealth  without  reference 
to  those  principles  which  make  them  per- 
manently conducive  to  human  happiness ; 
but  in  our  own  days  the  acquisition  of  that 
which  constitutes  real  wealth  is  largely 
I  understood  to  depend  upon  just  laws  and 
I  good  government  both  at  home  and  abroad  : 
:  in  forming  the  character,  therefore,  of  a 
I  colonial  people  with  a  view  to  bind  them 
|  in  interests  and  in  affection  to  the  mother- 
I  country,  everything  now  seems  to  depend 


INTRODUCTION. 


m 


Tipon  the  early  establishment  of  wise  laws 
for  the  protection  of  the  best  interests  of 
society,  and  upon  religious  education. 
Where  these  blessings  prevail^  true  liberty 
and  tranquil  enjoyment  of  life  are  most 
sure  to  be  found ;  and  where  they  do  not, 
and  human  liberty  is  left  to  itself,  unre- 
strained by  religious  feeling,  an  insolent 
and  bombastic  nature  is  liable  to  be  gen- 
erated, which  makes  a,  people  the  tools  of 
their  own  blind  passions,  and  obliterates 
all  reverence  for  the  great  objects  which 
good  men  believe  to  be  the  true  end  of  ex- 
istence. It  is  this  abuse  of  liberty  which  has 
so  greatly  changed  the  character  of  a  peo- 
ple eminently  fitted  for  greatness  by  their 
natural  qualities  ;  has  led  them  to  trample 
;under  foot  the  wise  precepts  of  the  most 
illustrious  founders  of -their  republic,  to  re- 
ject many  of  the  lessons  of  rational  free- 
dom which  have  been  ever  before  them,  to 
barter  their  invaluable  privileges  with  a 
demagogical  despotism,  for  the  magnilo- 
quent, but  empty,  designation  of  "  Sover- 
eign People,"  and  to  prepare  a  future  for 
their  country  which  seems  to  baffle  con- 
jecture. 

Those  in  America  who  are  so  prover- 
bially sensitive  at  every  expression  which 
appears  to  criticise  in  the  slightest  degree 
the  country  they  love,  or  which  tends  to 
abate  the  pretensions— long  set  up,  and  ac- 
quiesced in  by  so  many — of  its  "  never  be- 
ing in  the  wrong,"  are  always  dissatisfied 
with  any  thing  short  of  unqualified  eulo- 
gium  upon  themselves  and  their  country, 
and  are  not  apt  to  pardon  the  truth.  This 
would  be  matter  of  some  regret  to  the  au- 
thor, if  he  did  not  know  that  the  good  and  the 
wise  of  their  own  country  are  united  in  the 
condemnation  of  what  he  has  animadverted 
upon  :  amongst  them  are  many  to  whom  he 
would  be  very  averse  to  give  offence  :  pain- 
ful indeed  would  it  be  to  him  if  any  of  those 
excellent  persons,  whose  friendship  he  was 
proud  of  during  a  thirty  years'  residence 
amongst  them  as  an  Englishman,  should 
imagine  that  he  is  capable,  now  or  at  any 
time,  of  passing  an  indiscriminate  censure 
upon  their  nation,  and  of  uniting  with  oth- 
ers in  the  condemnation  of  all,  for  that 
which  has  been  conspicuous  only  with  a 
portion  of  their  countrymen. 

This  too  general  prejudice,  however, 
does  unfortunately  exist  in  Europe,  and 
has  grown  to  a  fearful  height  in  conse- 
quence of  the  violation  of  those  pecuniary 
engagements  which  have  been  already  al- 
luded to  ;  delinquencies  which,  either  from 
want  of  information  or  from  resentment, 
have  created  a  strong  prejudice  against  the 
whole  frame  of  American  society.  But 
let  us  be  just!  Reprehensible  as  these 
acts  are,  there  are  exceptions  to  them 
which  deserve  the  highest  praise,  and 
which  in  the  general  indignation  have 
been  almost  entirely  overlooked.  The 


world,  it  is  true,  has  seen  the  opulent  free 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  productive 
slave  State  of  Mississippi,  two  common-  . 
wealths  arrogating  to  themselves  the  lofty  ; 
distinction  of  "  enlightened  Sovereign 
States,"  declining  in  one  instance  to  pro- 
vide the  interest  of  the  moneys  they  have 
borrowed  from  their  confiding  creditors, 
and  refusing  in  the  other  even  to  acknowl- 
edge their  responsibilities ;  not  from  ina- 
bility, but  because  there  is  no  human  law 
to  compel  them  to  be  honest.  Yet  when 
the  just  scorn  of  mankind  is  expressed 
against  them,  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten 
that  Massachusetts,  New  York,  Kentucky, 
Ohio,  Tennessee,  and  other  indebted  States, 
have  resolutely  maintained  their  credit  un- 
der the  most  difficult  circumstances,  and 
have  placed  themselves  in  honourable  con- 
tradistinction to  their  unscrupulous  neigh- 
bours. 

These  violations  of  the  confidence  which 
the  so-called  securities  of  the  fraudulent 
States  had  acquired  in  Europe,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  known  resources  of  these 
last,  and  of  the  specious  circumstances  un- 
der which  the  first  had  been  palmed  upon 
the  unsuspecting,  were  preceded  by  the 
plunder  and  waste  of  the  whole  resources 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  incor- 
porated by  the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania 
with  a  capital  of  thirty-five  millions  of  dol- 
lars, a  great  portion  of  which  was  owned 
in  Great  Britain.  Then  came  Repudiation, 
or  the  doctrine  that  the  acts  of  one  legis- 
lature, and  even  of  one  generation,  are  not 
binding  upon  the  next ;  a  doctrine  which, 
though  it  had  its  origin  with  Mr.  Jefferson, 
was  first  promulgated  in  Pennsylvania.* 
Precedents  so  pernicious,  coming  from 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  opulent  States 
in  the  Union,  unfortunately  tempted  other 
members  of  the  Federal  Union  possessing 
fewer  resources,  to  follow  in  the  same  dis- 
reputable course ;  and  thus  was  com- 
promised in  the  end  the  reputation  of  the 
whole  republic. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  penalty  which  re- 
publican America  pays  for  her  departure 
from  integrity  :  these  unexpected  infringe- 
ments of  public  faith,  and  the  manner  in 
which  they  have  been  defended,  have  call- 
ed forth  into  greater  relief  the  change  of 
opinion  which  has  been  gradually  taking 
place  in  Europe,  in  relation  to  the  moral 
influence  which  cheap  republican  govern- 
ments were  supposed  likely  to  acquire  with 
the  coming  generations  of  men  in  all  civil- 
ized countries.     Experience,  which  is  the  | 
only  safe  guide  of  men,  has  now  shown  I 
that,  when  ostentatiously  applied  to  great  I 
countries  for  the  purpose  of  flattering  and  I 
leading  the  many,  they  call  into  operation  f 


*  A  convention  was  hold  there  a  few  years  ago  to  remodel 
the  constitution,  at  which  a  very  strong  party-headed  by  a 
leading  member  of  the  present  Congress— apptn rod  in  fa- 
vour of  cancelling  all  incorporations,  aud  all  contracts  that 
were  opposed  to  "first  principles." 


INTRODUCTION. 


more  corruption,  and  lead  to  a  more  rapid 
degeneracy  than  can  be  possibly  exhibited 
under  governments  where  power  is  con- 
fided to  those  who  have  the  greatest  stake 
in  the  preservation  of  order,  and  who  have 
been  trained  to  the  responsibility  of  exer- 
cising it  for  the  benefit  of  the  many.  In- 
deed, so  complete  has  been  this  change  in 
the  public  opinion  of  Europe,  that  the  ex- 
ample par  excellence,  which  the.  admirers  of 
a  republican  form  of  government  once  held 
up  to  the  admiration  of  mankind,  has  al- 
ready become  a  beacon  to  the  civilized 
world,  to  warn  all  future  generations 
against  those  theories  of  government  in 
which  the  public  welfare  is  not  based  upon 
that  solid  and  enduring  foundation  for  the 
government  of  a  State — a  constant  selec- 
tion of  men  of  character  and  property  for 
its  administration. 

But  here  again  a  want  of  discrimination 
in  the  judgment  that  has  been  formed  of 
the  American  people  is  equally  apparent : 
almost  all  those  who  have  not  known  them 
in  their  own  country  attribute  to  them,  alike, 
a  general  degeneracy ;  than  which  nothing 
can  be  more  unjust,  since  it  excludes  from 
well-merited  praise  those  patriotic  men 
who  have  constantly  endeavoured  to  give 
a  salutary  direction  to  the  administration 
of  the  public  affairs  of  their  country — men 
who  have  long  been,  and  who  yet  remain, 
the  victims  of  those  demagogues  to  whom 
their  peculiar  system  of  government  has 
given  a  preponderating  influence. 

No  respectable  person  who  has  travelled 
much  in  America  is  ignorant  that  in  every 
town,  and  in  almost  every  part  of  the  coun- 
try, there  are  individuals  distinguished  from 
the  rest  by  education,  manners,  hospitali- 
ty, and  the  possession  of  many  of  those 
high  qualities  which  make  men  truly  re- 
spectable in  all  countries,  and  render  them 
valuable  acquaintances  to  the  stranger  who 
|  has  the  advantage  of  knowing  them.  But 
'  these  excellent  persons,  with  exceptions  so 
few  that  that  they  are  scarcely  worth  enu- 
merating, are  rarely  participators  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  their  country ;  for,  where  the 
popular  party  predominates,  they  are  ex- 
cluded by  the  possession  of  those  very 
qualifications  that  fit  them  for  that  high 
purpose ;  so  seldom  is  it  that  a  candidate 
placed  before  the  "  Sovereign  People," 
without  any  other  recommendation  than 
his  fitness,  is  not  rejected. 

It  would  be  going  too  far  to  assert  that 
this  evil  condition  of  things  is,  without 
isome  qualification,  to  be  necessarily  attrib- 
aited  to  a  republican  form  of  government , 
because,  even  in  the  instance  of  the  United 
•States,  it  has  not  always  existed.  In  1806, 
when  the  author  first  visited  that  part  of 
America,  it  was  a  very  happy  country. 
The  bright  examples  which  had  exercised 
so  beneficent  an  influence  at  the  origin  of 
the  government,  were  not  then  forgotten. 


The  moral  dignity  of  Washington,  the  wis-- 
dom  of  Franklin,  the  integrity  of  Jay,  and; 
the  virtues  of  many  of  their  contemporaries, 
some  of  whom  were  then  living,  were  yet 
revered  by  the  people.  A  breach  of  de 
corum  in  the  Congress,  if  it  was  not  un- 
known in  those  days,  was  at  least  sure  to> 
be  met  by  public  reprobation ;  and  in  the 
State  legislatures  there  was  always  a  ma- 
jority of  individuals  selected  by  their  con- 
stituents from  among  the  most  respecta- 
ble members  of  society:  at  that  time,  in- 
deed, in  the  State  of  New  York,  which  has 
always  had  a  preponderating  influence  in 
the  Union  from  its  population  and  wealth, 
a  property  qualification  was  required  by 
the  constitution  both  for  the  Senate  and 
the  House  of  Assembly. 

In  treating  of  this  important  subject  it  is 
not  to  be  forgotten  that  in  an  evil  hour 
(1821)  for  that  Commonwealth,  and  for  the 
Union,  a  few  experienced  demagogues,  at 
a  period  when  the  members  of  the  legisla- 
ture had  not  been  delegated  for  that  pur- 
pose, contrived  the  authorisation  of  a  con- 
vention of  the  people,  to  consider  some 
fundamental  changes  in  its  constitution. 
There,  playing  upon  the  hopes  and  fears 
of  some  of  those  from  whom  an  inflexible 
opposition  was  expected,  and  overcoming 
by  their  arts  the  reluctance  that  was  mani- 
fested to  enter  upon  the  never-ending  chain 
of  evil  consequences  which  invariably  at- 
tend improvident  concessions,  these  "wily 
agitators  succeeded  in  converting  the  mob 
into  a  constituency,  by  establishing  "  Uni- 
versal Suffrage,"  that  fatal  principle  which 
has  been  the  leading  cause  of  the  prevail- 
ing degeneracy. 

Those  who  have  been  in  a  highly  popu- 
lous country,  where  universal  suffrage  and 
frequent  elections — ostensibly  held  for  the 
preservation  of  liberty — prevail,  can  best 
understand  how  easy  it  is  to  make  the 
"  Sovereign  People,"  a  mere  Ochlocratic* 
machine  in  the  hands  of  skilful  dema- 
gogues ;  or  with  what  facility  good  men 
are  made  odious  to  the  masses,  and  gov- 
ernment and  society  disorganised  for  the 
purpose  of  plundering  them.  Armed  with 
this  irresistible  power,  demagogues  find  no 
difficulty  in  perverting  those  principles  in 
free  constitutions  which  are  intended  for 
the  moral  and  civil  protection  of  society, 
or  in  excluding  talents  accompanied  with, 
education,  integrity,  and  wealth  from  the 
service  of  the  public.  It  is  to  the  fatal  sub- 
stitution of  universal  suffrage  for  character 
and  property,  and  the  general  departure 
from  the  enlightened  and  honest  intentions 
of  Washington  and  the  other  illustrious 
founders  of  their  republic,  that  we  must  at- 
tribute the  introduction  into  America  of 
that  wild,  democratic,  mannerless,  and 
tyrannical  rule,  both  in  the  constituency 


From  oxAof,  a  mob. 


INTRODUCTION 


and  its  leaders,  which  promises  no  repose 
for  the  present,  and  little  hope  for  the  fu- 
ture. The  friends  of  order  may,  indeed, 
rally  from  time  to  time,  but  it  is  to  be  fear- 
ed that  it  will  be  only  when  the  excesses 
of  their  opponents  have  created  a  tempo- 
rary disgust :  these,  indeed,  may  be  driven 
from  power  for  a  while,  but  as  long  as  uni- 
versal suffrage  exists,  the  vigilance  of 
demagogues  will  never  sleep,  and  the  same 
scenes  will  ever  be  enacted  over  and  over 
again. 

This  experiment,  therefore,  of  dignify- 
ing the  masses  with  the  title  of  "  Sovereign 
People,"  and  of  attempting  to  provide  for 
the  well-being  of  society  by  cheapjrepubli- 
can  government  founded  upon  a  theoretical 
equality  in  the  privileges  of  men,  if  it  is  to 
be  judged  of  by  the  results  which  have  al- 
ready appeared,  is  a  signal  and  instructive 
failure,  such  as  must  attend  every  scheme 
which  permits  the  ignorant  to  govern  the 
wise,  and  transfers  the  rule  which  Nature 
intended  for  the  head  to  the  inferior  ex- 
tremities of  the  body  politic. 

How  instructive  is  this  lesson  to  the 
other  governments  of  Christendom  !  and 
how  interesting  to  ourselves,  who  had 
hoped  for  some  contributions  to  the  com- 
mon cause  of  rational  liberty  from  the  hap- 
py opportunities  which  America  had  So 
long  enjoyed  !  The  melancholy  truth 
seems  too  apparent,  that  when  a  people 
reject  the  experience  of  the  past,  cast  aside 
the  guidance  of  the  wise  and  the  virtuous, 
and  commit  their  honour  and  prosperity  to 
the  tumultuous  passions  of  the  multitude, 
they  are  sure  to  descend  in  the  scale  of  true 
civilization  more  rapidly  than  they  rose. 

Deep  as  is  the  regret  which  this  eminent 
failure  has  caused  to  the  sincere  friends 
of  civil  liberty,  it  is  immensely  increased 
when  they  see  how  glorious  an  opportuni- 
ty the  United  States  have  lost  of  enlighten- 
ing the  new-born  republican  governments 
of  South  America.  The  disadvantages  un- 
der which  the  old  Spanish  colonies  assumed 
their  independence  were  great,  and  the 
struggle  to  sustain  their  self-government 
in  an  honourable  manner  was  often  sin- 
cere, though  seldom  successful :  if  they 
had  been  cheered  on  by  a  great  example 
of  wise  government,  and  scrupulous  fideli- 
ty tn  their  engagements,  on  their  own  con- 
tinent, the  United  States  might  have  had 
the  glory  of  effecting  for  their  sister  re- 
publics what  Great  Britain  has  so  well 
done,  in  the  sphere  within  which  she  has 
moved,  for  the  general  interests  of  man- 
kind T  and  have  shown  that  "  Liberty,' 
without  religion,  morality,  and  honesty  to 
guard  it  from  desecration,  is  but  a  delu- 
sion ;  and  that  extent  of  territory  gives  no 
power  to  a  nation  that  she  can  exercise  in 
an  efficient  manner,  unless  she  cherishes 
those  duties  which  alone  acquire  for  a  peo- 
ple the  respect  of  mankind. 


The  author  is  aware  that  these  reflec- 
ions  may  appear  superfluous  to  some  of 
lis  readers  in  the  introduction  to  a  work 
which  daes  not  aspire  to  be  of  a  particu- 
"arly  serious  character.  He  has  been  led 
nto  them,  not  from  a  desire  to  aggravate 
;he  discontent  which  is  now  so  generally 
expressed,  but  to  abate  it  by  turning  the 
attention  of  his  readers  to  some  circum- 
stances which  have  not  been  sufficiently 
adverted  to,  viz.,  that  the  American  peo- 
ple were  misled  at  an  early  period  of  their 
self-government  :*  that  whilst  the  cause  of 
hese  evils,  which  have  attracted  universal 
attention,  is  to  be  found  in  that  excess  of 
iberty  which  in  America  has  degenerated 
nto  licence,  yet  that  the  good  and  the  wise 
there  have  stood  up  manfully  in  the  cause 
of  rational  freedom :  that  although  some 
of  the  States  have  acted  in  a  dishonoura- 
ble manner,  the  greater  proportion  of  them 
have  been  faithful  to  taeir  engagements ; 
and,  finally,  from  a  wish  to  state  that  if  we 
encourage  the  prejudices  which  have  been 
excited  indiscriminately  against  all,  by  re- 
fusing our  sympathies  to  those  who  are 
so  eminently  entitled  to  them,  we  only 
ncrease  the  evil,  and  dispose  those  to 
estrange  themselves,  whom  we  have  the 
justest  reasons  to  draw  near  to  us. 

The  author  also  is  glad  to  add  his  opin- 
ion, that  there  are  good  reasons  for  believ- 
ing, that  all  the  States  which  are  defaulters 
will  ere  long  provide  for  the  due  fulfilment 
of  their  obligations ;  their  resources  are 
great  and  are  continually  increasing,  and 
the  false  step  they  have  taken  of  destroy- 
ing their  own  credit  is  now  the  main  cause 
of  their  embarrassments ;  this  they  have 
been  made  clearly  to  feel,  so  that  they  have 
nothing  to  hope  for  their  credit,  either  in 
their  own  country  or  in  Europe,  but  by  re- 
turning to  the  straight  road  from  which 
they  havedeviated. 

There  is  also  another  bright  and  encour- 
aging spot  on  the  horizon  ;  for  if  any  faith 
is  to  be  placed  in  prognostics,  the  United 
States  ere  long  will  come  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  chief  magistrate,  the  in- 
fluence of  whose  character  will  win  back 
for  his  country  the  credit  which  she  has 
temporarily  lost.  The  whole  civilized 
world  is  concerned  in  the  wish  that  that 
salutary  influence  may  be  lasting,  and 
throw  into  obscurity  all  the  errors  of  the 
past. 

No  one  is  more  sincere  in  that  wish  than 
the  author.  To  those  in  America  who 
may  be  disposed  to  put  an  unfriendly  con- 
struction upon  anything  that  has  escaped 
his  pen,  he  can  only  say  that  they  do  him 
injustice,  for  he  is  beyond  that  period  of 
life  when  he  could  be  indifferent  to  the  re- 
flection that  he  had  purposely  uttered  opin- 


,he  last  chapter  of  this  work  a  sketch  will  be  given 
>{  the  fundamental  causes  of  their  deviation  from. 


*  Ir 
their  ancient  character 


INTRODUCTION. 


ions  which  were  unjust  to  any  individual, 
or  to  any  community  of  men  amongst  whom 
he  has  lived.  His  justification  wjth  those 
to  whom  the  free  expression  of  some  of 
his  opinions  may  not  be  grateful,  is,  that 
•errors  of  government  which  lead  to  injuri- 
ous changes  in  the  conduct  and  character 
of  a  people,  form  a  subject  deeply  interest- 


ing to  England,  especially  at  a  moment 
when  so  many  new  settlements  are  being 
planted  by  her ;  and  that  his  remarks  not 
being  the  result  of  theoretical  considera- 
tions, he  felt  that  he  owed  it  as  a  duty  to 
his  country  to  speak  of  what  he  had  seen, 
and  of  what  he  had  carefully  observed. 


TRAVELS  IN  THE  SLAVE  STATES 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Barnum's  Hotel  at  Baltimore — Canvas-back  Ducks  —  Soft 
Crabs  ;  the  process  of  changing  their  shells— Railroad  to 
Fredericton  in  Maryland  —  Impositions  practised  upon 
Travellers— Notices  of  the  Geology  of  the  Country— Har- 

-per's-ferry  ;  the  Shenandoah  Valley — Nationality  of  the 

'Germanico- Americans. 

ANY  one  who  has  endured  for  many  days  the 
filth  and  discomfort  of  that  caravansary  called 
Gail  shy's  Hotel  at  Washington,  the  city  of  "mag- 
nificent distances,"  will  feel  exceedingly  rejoi- 
ced when,  after  a  short  interval  of  two  or  three 
hours,  he  finds  himself  transferred  hy  the  rail- 
Toad  to  Barnum's  at  Baltimore.  If  there  is  an 
hotel-keeper  in  the  United  States  who  merits 
the  commendations  of  a  traveller,  the  veteran 
Mr.  Barnum  may  claim  to  be  that  person.  His 
neat  private  parlours  and  bed-rooms,  his  quiet 
house,  his  excellent  table,  and  the  ready  and 
-obliging  attendance  found  there,  leave  the  trav- 
-eller  little  to  desire. 

It  was'  at  Barnum's,  many,  many  years  ago, 
in  the  opening  of  the  winter,  that  I  made  rny 
first  essay  upon  what  is  universally  allowed  to 
he  the  greatest  of  all  delicacies  in  the  United 
•States,  the  Canvas-back  duck  —  an  exemplary 
bird,  which  seems  to  take, — sua  sponte, — the 
imost  indefatigable  pains  to  qualify  himself  for  a 
favourable  reception  in  the  best  society  :  for  in 
the  first  instance  he  makes  himself  exceedingly 
fat  by  resorting  to  the  low  marshy  lands  of  the 
Susquehannah  and  the  borders  of  those  streams 
which  are  tributary  to  it,  to  feed  upon  the  ripe 
seed  of  the  Zizania  aquatiea,  a  sort  of  wild  rice 
which  abounds  there ;  and  then  at  the  proper 
season  betakes  himself  to  an  esculent  root 
growing  in  the  sedgy  banks  of  the  rivers,  to 
.give  the  last  finish  to  the  tenderness,  the  juici- 
ness, and  the  delicate  flavour  which  distinguish 
•him  above  all  other  birds  when  brought  to  table. 
But  justice  must  be  done  to  him  by  an  able  ar- 
tist, or,  great  as  his  intrinsic  qualities  are,  he 
may  be  reduced  to  a  condition  that  entitles  him 
even  to  be  pitied  by  the  humble  scavenger-duck. 

I  had  heard  a  great  deal  of  this  inestimable 
'bird  before  it  was  presented  to  me  under  the 
auspices  of  Barnum,  and  was  somewhat  sur- 
prised and  disappointed  at  seeing  him  place  on 
the  table,  with  great  solemnity,  a  couple  of 
birds  on  a  dish  without  a  single  drop  of  gravy  in 
it.  Now  every  one  knows  that  a  quantum  suff. 
of  good  gravy  is  to  English  rotis  what  fine  sun- 
ny weather  is  to  the  incidents  of  life,  enabling 
them  to  pass  along  smoothly  and  pleasantly  ; 
and,  therefore,  as  soon  as  I  had  a  little  recover- 
ed from  my  alarm,  I  could  not  help  telling  Bar- 
num that  I  was  afraid  I  should  not  like  his  can- 
vas-backs. Upon  which,  asking  my  permission, 
lie  took  up  the  carving-knife,  and  making  two 


incisions  in  the  fat  breasts  of  the  birds,  the  dish 
instantly  became  filled  with  the  desired  fluid. 
Had  I  not  seen  this,  I  could  not  have  believed 
it !  Then  came  the  action  of  the  rtr.hauffoirs, 
the  dismemberment  of  the  birds  scarcely  warm- 
ed through  at  the  fire,  the  transference  of  their 
delicate  flesh  to  our  hot  plates,  and  its  recon- 
coction  in  their  own  gravy,  with  currant  jelly, 
a  soupcon  of  chateau  margeaux,  and  a  small 
quantity  of  fine  loaf  sugar.  We  were  three  of 
us  to  these  two  birds,  and  the  great  Barnum 
had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  us  declare  that 
the  only  defect  they  had  consisted  in  their  not 
being  of  the  size  of  turkeys. 

Certainly  this  dish  well  deserves  its  great 
reputation,  and  it  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that 
the  genius  of  the  hermit  of  the  Chaussee  d'An- 
tin  has  never  been  inspired  by  it. 

But  although  the  period  at  which  the  tour 
commenced,  which  will  be  narrated  in  these 
pages,  was  not  that  of  Canvas-back  ducks,  still 
my  family  and  myself,  on  reaching  Barnum's 
from  Washington,  towards  the  end  of  July,  1834, 
found  that  the  season  for  soft  crabs  was  not  yet 
over,  and  that  this  is  a  dish  of  very  great  mer- 
it, and  little  known  in  Europe.  The  crab,  in 
the  United  States,  resorts  in  the  early  summer 
months  to  the  low  shores  of  the  rivers  and  bays 
between  the  38th  and  39th  degrees  of  north  lat- 
itude, to  discard  its  shell,  in  order  to  take  an- 
other more  suited  to  its  increasing  size.  The 
process  of  throwing  off  its  shell  is  one  which  I 
have  often  witnessed  in  all  its  stages,  towards 
the  mouth  of  the  Potomac  river,  and  in  various 
parts  of  that  great  estuary  the  Chesapeake  bay. 
There  these  Crustacea  are  seen  during  the  sum- 
mer months  in  countless  numbers,  and  of  all 
sizes,  half  buried  in  the  mud,  undergoing  a  se- 
vere operation,  which  Nature,  consistently  with 
the  simplicity  of  all  her  works,  has  curiously 
and  appropriately  adapted  them  to.  When  the 
calcareo-mucous  matter  which  exudes  from 
their  bodies  begins  to  rise,  and  to  force  the 
shell  a  little  upwards,  the  animal  instinctively 
seeks  the  low  shores,  as  a  place  of  refuge 
against  the  voracious  inhabitants  of  the  rivers, 
that  would  otherwise  prey  upon  it  when  divest- 
ed of  its  armour.  In  a  short  time  the  sutures 
of  the  shells  begin  to  relax,  and  the  edible  parts 
to  be  separated  from  them  by  the  intervention 
of  the  mucous  matter.  When  all  is  ready  for 
the  great  struggle,  the  animal  makes  its  exer- 
tion, and  gradually  backs  out,  leaving  the  shell 
behind,  and  sometimes  with  the  loss  of  a  claw 
or  two.  The  operation  being  over,  the  crab  ap- 
pears to  be  entirely  exhausted,  and  is  nothing 
but  a  soft  unresisting  mass,  prostrate  in  the 
mud.  But  it  gradually  reacquires  strength  ; 
mucous  matter  is  constantly  secreting  and  com- 


12 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


ing  to  the  surface  of  its  body,  where  it  slowly 
indurates,  and  takes  a  crustaceous  appearance. 
In  this  stage,  whilst  the  shell  is  exceedingly 
soft,  and  the  animal  is  flattering  itself  with  get- 
ting into  a  convalescent  state,  it  is  too  often  its 
fate  to  be  picked  up  and  forwarded  to  Mr.  Bar- 
num,  who  serves  it  up  fried  with  so  much  nice- 
ty, that  the  epicure  is  able,  with  peculiar  satis- 
faction, to  eat  every  portion  of  this  savoury 
dish,  especially  including  the  nice  crisp  shell. 
This  delicacy  we  found  at  Barnum's  on  our  ar- 
rival, and  all  of  us  united  in  expressing  our  ad- 
miration of  it. 

At  this  comfortable  hotel,  then,  my  family  and 
myself  remained  several  days,  making  prepara- 
tions for  a  tour  to  the  Virginia  Springs,  in  the 
Alleghany  mountains,  which  are  watering-pla- 
ces of  great  celebrity  in  the  Southern  States, 
not  only  on  account  of  their  curative  qualities, 
but  because  they  are  resorted  to  by  the  families 
of  many  opulent  planters  south  and  west  of  the 
Potomac.  Here  I  proposed  leaving  my  wife  a 
short  time  for  the  benefit  of  her  health  ;  whilst 
my  son  and  myself,  pursuing  the  eastern  flank 
of  the  Alleghany  mountains  as  far  as  we  could, 
should  continue  our  geological  tour  west  of  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Mexican  frontier. 

Everything  being  ready  for  our  departure,  at 
five  o'clock  A.M.,  on  the  1st  of  August,  we  ex- 
changed our  precious  comforts  at  Barnum's  for 
the  confusion  of  a  wretched  dirty  omnibus  that 
was  to  convey  us  to  the  railroad  station,  on  our 
way  to  Fredericton  in  Maryland,  distant  sixty 
miles.  In  the  hurry  of  the  moment,  when— 
with  our  eyes  scarcely  more  than  half  open — 
there  were  so  many  things  to  look  after,  a  small 
chest  of  chemical  tests,  which  I  had  been  pre- 
paring wjth  great  care,  and  some  of  the  materi- 
als of  which  I  had  obtained  from  Philadelphia, 
was  snatched  up  by  one  of  the  people,  and  strap- 
ped on  very  insecurely  behind  with  the  trunks. 
Before  we  had  proceeded  150  yards  from  the 
hotel,  I  saw  this  object  of  my  anxieties  come 
tumbling  down  on  the  stones,  and  calling  to  the 
Driver,  he  alighted  and  brought  it  to  me,  adding 
with  his  characteristic  twang,  that  it  had  the 
"  most  owconceivable  smell  I  reckon  I  ever  put 
my  nose  to."  The  first  look  was  sufficient ; 
the  whole  concern  appeared  to  be  smashed,  ev- 
erything was  wet,  and  there  was  no  remedy  but 
to  place  it  on  the  floor  of  the  omnibus.  "There 
goes  the  labour  of  ten  days,"  said  I  in  a  piteous 
tone ;  "  the  whole  box  dished,  and  no  end  to 
take  hold  of  that  is  not  reeking  with  muriatic 
and  nitric  acid!"  This  was  literally  the  fact. 
There  was  enough  in  this  incident  to  make  a 
man  believe  in  bad  omens :  it  was  Friday,  and 
if  we  had  stopped  in  Baltimore  till  Saturday,  it 
was  very  clear,  at  any  rate,  that  the  accident 
would  not  have  happened  on  a  Friday.  My  son 
somewhat  consoled  me  by  suggesting,  that  per- 
haps those  vials^only  were  broken  which  could 
be  the  most  easily  supplied,  and  I  resolved  to 
cling  to  that  hope. 

On  our  arrival  at  the  station,  we  found  that 
the  deference  which  the  railroad  company  af- 
fected to  feel  for  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  who 
lodged  at  Barnum's,  and  for  whose  especial  ac- 
commodation they  had  sent  a  dirty  omnibus  at 
an  hour  when  it  was  impossible  to  procure  a 
clean  one,  was  in  keeping  with  the  other  pro- 
fessions of  those  disinterested  persons  who  live 


by  conveying  ladies  and  gentlemen  to  and  fro 
n  this  bad  world  :  instead  of  being  comfortably 
placed  in  a  clean  car  with  birds  of  a  like  feath- 
er, we  were  most  unceremoniously  emptied  into 
the  last  car,  with  a  set  of  as  unshaven,  unprom- 
ising looking  fellows  as  ever  I  was  shut  up  with. 
Amongst  the  rest  was  a  horrid,  dirty,  little 
humpbacked  imp  of  the  male  kind,  with  a  most 
malicious  physiognomy,  and  as  pert  and  forward 
as  those  unfortunate  beings  usually  are  when 
they  have  received  their  education  in  the  streets. 
My  wife  was  good  naturedly  disposed  to  submit 
to  every  inconvenience  but  this;  the  sight  of 
this  object  perfectly  horrified  her,  and  she  could 
think  of  nothing  but  the  misery  of  sitting  in  the 
same  car  with  this  creature  for  sixty  miles.  Pla- 
cing myself  betwixt  him  and  her,  with  the  un^- 
fortunate  test-box  under  my  seat,  this  little 
creature  perceiving  me  rather  solicitous  about 
it,  ill-naturedly  kicked  it  away,  when  it  occa- 
sionally came  in  the  way  of  his  feet. ;  but  I  had 
my  revenge  without  taking  much  trouble,  for  he 
contrived  to  empty  what  remained  of  the  acids 
into  a  little  pool  beneath  him,  and  there,  to  my 
somewhat  satisfaction,  he  sat  with  his  shoes  in 
them.  We  stopped  to  breakfast  at  Ellicot's 
mills,  a  ceremony  which  gave  a  turn  to  our 
thoughts  ;  and  finding  that  Humpy  Dumpy  was 
not  going  any  farther,  and  that  the  weather  was 
going  to  be  fine,  we  became  more  reconciled  to- 
our  situation  :  I  therefore  mounted  the  top  of 
the  rail-car,  and  kept  my  ground  there  in  the 
teeth  of  a  column  of  smoke  loaded  with  sulphu- 
retted hydrogen,  proceeding  from  the  pyritical 
coals  of  the  furnace,  which  the  wind  frequently 
urged  upon  me. 

This  railroad  is  laid  in  a  very  interesting  ra- 
vine, through  which  the  river  Patapsco  flows 
over  its  bed,  consisting  of  granite  and  other  pri- 
mary beds.  I  was  delighted  at  being  wheeled 
with  the  velocity  of  a  locomotive  through  a  sin- 
gularly picturesque  road,  where  such  a  variety 
of  primitive  rocks  presented  themselves.  At 
Marriotsville,  13  miles  from  Ellicot's,  the  beds 
became  more  fissile,  and  clay  slate  occasionally 
appeared,  but  gneiss  was  the  general  rock  ;  and 
at  Sykesville,  four  miles  farther,  where  we  stop- 
ped a  short  time,  I  found  it  contained  small  but 
very  transparent  garnets.  Farther  on,  at  Mon- 
rovia, we  came  upon  micaceous  slate  ;  after 
which  the  country  to  Fredericton  became  less 
uneven,  and  we  passed  many  well-cultivated 
farms,  a  band  of  limestone  running  through  the 
district,  of  which  the  farmers  are  beginning  to 
avail  themselves  as  a  manure.  At  Fredericton 
we  got  to  a  tolerably  good  inn,  and  here  my  first 
care  was  to  overhaul  my  case  of  tests.  One 
large  phial  of  refined  alcohol  was  broken,  as  well 
as  one  flint-glass  phial  of  nitric  acid  and  one  of 
muriatic  acid.  The  labels  were  obliterated  from 
the  other  phials,  and  all  the  caoutchouc  cover- 
ings to  the  ground  stoppers  eaten  off.  Upon 
applying  to  a  Mr.  Elliot,  a  druggist  of  the  place, 
he  not  only  most  obligingly  assisted  me  to  re- 
pair my  misfortune,  but  refused  to  receive  any 
compensation.  Considering  it,  therefore,  a  good 
rule  to  keep  up  an  account-current  of  good  turns 
and  evil  turns  with  mankind,  I  set  off  the  good 
deeds  of  worthy  Mr.  Elliot  against  the  evil  ones 
of  the  fellow  who  had  not  strapped  the  case  on 
well,  and  against  the  malice  of  little  Humpy, 
and  closed  the  account.  But  I  had  to  open  it 
very  soon  again. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


13 


At  Baltimore  I  had  paid  to  the  agent  of  Stock 
ton  and  Stokes  our  fare  all  the  way  to  Harper's- 
ferry,  on  the  river  Potomac,  and  had  had  the 
prudent  precaution  to  take  a  receipt,  in  which 
it  was  stated  that  I  was  to  he  forwarded  to 
Harper's  ferry  on  that  day.  This  the  agent  of 
the  company  at  Fredericton — a  forward,  imper- 
tinent lellow — now  refused  to  do.  He  swore  it 
•was  all  a  mistake ;  that  I  had  not  paid  enough, 
and  he  "  reckoned  what  owder  arth  I  could  want 
him  to  do  it  for,  when  he  had  no  stage  nor  no 
horses,  no  more  than  if  there  was  no  such 
things  to  do  it  with."  As  I  saw  he  was  likely 
to  be  as  ohstinate  as  he  was  insolent,  I  got  the 
landlord  at  the  inn  to  send  for  another  fellow, 
just  as  great  a  cheat  as  the  agent ;  and  having 
ascertained  from  him  what  his  lowest  terms 
were  for  a  stage-coach  and  four  horses  to  Har- 
per's-ferry,  I  took  him  to  the  agent,  and  told 
him  if  he  thought  the  price  too  high,  he  must 
now  say  so,  as  his  employers  would  have  to  re- 
fund it  to  me,  for  I  was  determined  to  go  on. 
This  move  on  rny  part  brought  him,  as  the 
landlord  very  quaintly  remarked,  "to  a  non- 
plush  ;"  he  saw  that  my  remedy  against  his 
employers  was  a  good  one,  and  that  further  ob- 
stinacy might  cost  him  his  place  ;  so,  cursing 
and  swearing  and  vapouring  about,  and  decla- 
ring that  he  never  did  meet  with  "  sich  a  (trea- 
sonable parson"  as  myself,  he  at  length  pro- 
duced a  stage-coach  and  four  horses  for  the 
next  20  miles  to  the  Potomac.  If  I  had  not  ta7 
ken  a  receipt,  stating  that  I  was  to  be  conduct- 
ed to  Harper's-ferry  on  that  same  day,  there 
would  have  been  no  remedy  for  me,  and  I 
should  have  been  cheated  out  of  the  money  ; 
for  the  agent  would  have  charged  his  employ- 
ers for  forwarding  me,  and  would  have  put  the 
money  in  his  own  pocket. 

We  had  an  agreeable  drive  across  the  Cotoc- 
tin  mountain,  a  slaty  chain  in  advance  of  what 
is  called  the  Blue  Ridge  ;  and  passing  the  bridge 
that  crosses  the  Potomac,  reached  Harper's- 
ferry  before  sunset,  which  gave  me  time  to  look 
•at  the  gorge  through  which  the  Potomac  has 
worn  its  channel,  and  of  which  Mr.  Jefferson, 
in  his  Notes  on  Virginia,  has  spoken  in  some- 
what extravagant  terms.  The  Potomac  is 
shallow  here,  and  is  joined  at  Harper's-ferry  by 
:-  the  Shenandoah,  a  very  pretty  stream,  from  the 
west. 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  sufficient  answer  to 
those  who  have  expressed  an  opinion  that  the 
beds  of  mountain  streams  and  the  'passages 
which  rivers  make  through  chains  of  mountains 
have  been  originally  formed  by  fissures  which 
preceded  the  rivers,  that  the  fissures  are  not 
found  beneath  the  general  level  of  the  bottoms 
of  the  streams,  and  that  the  bottoms  correspond 
to  form  one  general  plane  of  descent  to  the 
ocean.  But  independent  of  this  objection  to 
.such  an  hypothesis,  it  can  be  shown  that  al- 
most all  the  phenomena  connected  with  these 
mountain  channels  bear  direct  testimony  to  the 
opinion  that  these  channels  have  been  worn  bv 
the  rivers  themselves  ;  and  perhaps  there  is  no 
district  in  the  world  which  contains  more  stri 
king  proofs  of  this  than  the  Alleghany  mount- 
ains, in  which  the  sources  of  two  great  classes 
of  rivers  are  found,  those  which  empty  them- 
selves into  the  Atlantic,  and  those  which  flow 
into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 


We  left  Harper's-ferry  at  the  break  of  day. 
The  issue  of  the  Shenandoah  from  the  gorge 
through  which  it  flows  is  very  grand.  The 
rocks,  composed  of  talcose  slate,  greenstone, 
hornblendic  and  other  very  ancient  slaty  mate- 
rials, jut  over,  in  bold  ledges,  from  the  lofty  and 
craggy  sides  of  the  valley.  To  the  left  the 
mountain  is  covered  with  forest-trees  growing 
amidst  the  crags,  and  beneath  runs  the  pretty 
river  murmuring  through  the  glen,  in  which  the 
rifle-manufactories  of  the  government  of  the 
United  States  are  situated,  the  wheels  of  which, 
were  creaking  at  this  early  hour,  a  pleasing 
proof  of  the  industry  that  prevails  here.  As 
soon  as  we  had  got  well  out  of  the  primary 
rocks  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  we  came,  at  about  two 
miles  from  Harper's-ferry,  upon  the  limestone, 
occasionally  alternating  with  slate,  of  the  great 
valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  which  is  in  some  pla- 
ces about  30  miles  broad.  We  stopped  at 
Smithsfield,  15  miles  from  the  Potomac,  to 
breakfast ;  but  I  neither  found  any  fossrts  in. 
the  rock,  nor  could  learn  of  any  having  been 
found  in  that  neighbourhood.  It  appears,  how- 
ever, to  be  contemporaneous  with  some  of  the 
limestone  formations  of  the  state  of  New  York, 
and  to  belong  to  the  series  subjacent  to  the  old 
red  sandstone,  which  Mr.  Murchison  is  at  this 
time  engaged  in  the  classification  of  in  England, 
with  a  perseverance  and  ability  that  promise  the 
most  brilliant  and  unexpected  results  respecting 
that  portion  of  the  geological  column  hitherto 
only  obscurely  known  to  us  as  the  transition, 
formations.* 

Just  as  we  had  risen  from  our  meal,  up  drove 
the  stage  from  Boonsborough,  with  no  less  a 
personage  in  it  than  our  little  hunchback  of  the 
day  before.  He  looked  so  much  like  an  imp  in 
disguise,  sent  by  the  father  of  evil  to  accompany 
and  annoy  me  wherever  I  went,  that  I  felt  a 
sudden  compunction  come  upon  me  as  soon  as 
I  saw  him,  on  account  of  the  nitric  acid.  Per- 
haps his  hoof  had  been  injured  by  it !  He  came 
up  to  me,  too,  with  the  greatest  possible  famil- 
iarity, and  with  a  devilish  impudence,  that  put 
all  sympathy  for  him  out  of  the  question.  With 
this  dirty  creature  we  had  to  travel  to  Winches- 
ter, 15  miles,  for,  to  our  great  dismay,  he  got 
'nto  our  stage ;  and,  indeed,  if  he  had  got  upon 
my  back,  as  the  old  man  established  himself 
upon  the  shoulders  of  Sinbad,  I  should  not  have 
jeen  exceedingly  surprised,  so  completely  as- 
funded  was  I  at  his  unexpected  appearance. 
The  road  was  very  rough  and  knobby,  occa- 
sioned by  the  cropping  out  of  the  edges  of  the 
mestone  strata,  over  which  we  were  travelling 
at  right  angles,  and  which  dipped  very  rapidly 
to  the  east.  The  excessive  jolting  of  the  stage- 
coach kept  everything  upon  the  rock  ;  the  dri- 
ver urged  his  horses  as  if  he  were  possessed  by 
a  fiend,  and  we  were  obliged  to  hold  on  by  the 


Mr.  Murchison's  great  work,  '  The  Silurian  System,' 
did  not  appear  until  1839,  seven  years  after  he  had  engaged 
n  the  investigation  of  the  strata  comprehended  in  it.  But 
s  early  as  1833,  the  year  before  this  tour  was  made,  he 
ad  communicated  to  me  the  progress  he  was  making,  and 
is  first  synopsis  of  the  formations  he  had  succeeded  in  re- 
ducing to  their  natural  order  ;  so  that  I  was  enabled,  at  the 
earliest  moment,  to  apply  the  information  I  received  from 
him  to  my  own  geological  researches  in  North  America; 
and  subsequently,  in  1836.  to  publish  a  Tabular  View  of 
-locks  arranged  upon  Mr.  Murchison *s  plan,  and  point  out, 
for  the  first  time,  American  localities  which  justified  the 
extension  of  the  Silurian  System  to  North  America. 


14 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


stage-coach  to  keep  our  seats :  as  to  little 
Humpy  Dumpy,  he  was  tossed  up  and  down 
like  a  shuttlecock,  and  at  last  got  into  a  perma- 
nent hideous  grin,  whether  of  satisfaction  or 
pain  it  was  impossible  to  tell ;  but  it  ended  by 
establishing  one  with  us  of  a  less  equivocal 
kind,  for  we  got  into  a  most  irrepressible  fit  of 
laughter,  which  I  believe  broke  the  spell,  and 
our  dread  of  Gobbo  was  at  length  lost  in  the 
amusement  he  afforded  us. 

Winchester  is  a  neat,  substantial  town,  with 
some  good  cultivation  about  it :  from  thence 
we  continued — without  Gobbo  —  13  miles  to 
Middleton  to  dinner.  The  crops  of  Indian  corn 
on  the  route  were  good,  and  the  horned  cattle 
larger  and  in  better  condition  than  those  I  had 
seen  in  Maryland  ;  but  they  were  a  mongrel 
breed,  and,  indeed,  there  is  nothing  like  improve- 
ment visible  in  this  part  of  the  country  in  any 
kind  of  live  stock.  The  Blue  Ridge  was  in 
sight  on  our  left,  and  in  half  an  hour  after  leav- 
ing Middleton  we  came  abreast  of  what  is  call- 
ed the  Massonetto  mountain,  a  singularly  beau- 
tiful elevation  of  limestone  in  the  shape  of  a 
fork,  the  prongs  lying  to  the  north-east  and  the 
handle  to  the  south-west,  conforming  with  the 
general  strike  of  the  strata  in  the  Alleghanies. 
This  mountain,  which  stretches  about  70  miles 
north-east  and  south-west,  sinks  at  the  south 
into  hummocks  and  slopes.  The  valley,  between 
the  two  forks,  is  somewhat  cultivated,  as  I  was 
informed,  and  has  a  small  stream  running 
through  it,  called  Passage  Creek,  which  empties 
into  the  Shenandoah.  Ammonites  and  trilobites 
have  been  procured  near  this  creek.  The  dis- 
tance of  the  two  prongs  from  each  other,  at  the 
north,  is  about  six  miles,  and  the  north  and 
south  branches  of  the  Shenandoah  run  on  each 
side  of  the  mountain,  which,  towards  the  south- 
west, is,  as  I  was  told,  about  two  miles  broad 
at  the  top.  I  was  further  informed,  that  slates 
alternated  with  the  limestone  in  parts  of  this 
interesting  monument  of  ancient  geological  ac- 
tion, which  has  thus  modified  the  uniformity  of 
this  valley. 

From  Middleton  to  Woodstock,  a  distance  of 
17  miles,  we  travelled  across  the  edges  of  the 
strata  ;  the  road  being  altogether  upon  the  bare 
rocks,  and  the  violent  motion  of  the  stage-coach 
almost  past  enduring :  the  country,  however, 
was  picturesque ;  we  had  the  Massonetlo  on 
our  left,  and  a  broad  ridge  of  the  Alleghanies 
on  our  right ;  but  we  were  extremely  glad  to 
arrive  at  Woodstock,  where  we  found  attentive 
people  and  tolerable  accommodations. 

At  dawn  of  day  we  were  all  in  the  stage 
again  ;  and,  after  travelling  three  or  four  miles, 
we  came  to  the  place  called  "  the  Narrow  Pas- 
sage," where  the  road  passes  over  a  natural  ter- 
race of  blue  compact  limestone,  with  a  base 
about  200  feet  wide  at  the  bottom,  tapering  up 
to  20  feet  in  width  at  the  top.  On  the  south 
cide  the  wall  of  this  terrace  is  about  120  feet 
high,  and  is  washed  at  the  bottom  by  the  north 
fork  of  the  Shenandoah,  whilst  the  wall  on  the 
north  side  is  only  96  feet  high,  and  is  washed 
by  a  small  creek  called  Narrow  Passage  Creek, 
which  joins  the  Shenandoah  to  the  north  east 
of  this  singular  terrace.  When  standing  on  the 
top,  the  streams  on  each  side  can  be  perceived, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand  the  phe- 
nomenon without  a  careful  investigation.  Hav- 


ing established  a  good  understanding  with  the 
driver,  he  very  obligingly  gave  me,  as  he  called 
it,  "half  an  hour's  law,"  which  enabled  me  to 
examine  every  part  of  it.  After  a  drive  of  13 
miles  we  stopped  at  Mount  Jackson  to  breakfast. 

This  valley  is  principally  settled  vyith  Ger- 
man people,  some  of  whom  are  quite  opulent. 
The  villagers,  too,  seemed  all  well  to  do  in  the 
world,  and  have  abundant  means  of  making 
travellers  comfortable.  It  is  said,  however, 
they  have  not  always  the  disposition,  being  very 
national,  and  quite  indifferent  about  those  who 
are  not  of  their  race.  I  found  the  little  German 
which  I  spoke  of  great  advantage  to  me  heie  ; 
"  Wie  gents  mein  lieher,"  accompanied  with  a 
hearty  shake  of  the  hand,  operated  as  a  talis- 
man, and  we  certainly  had  nothing  to  complain: 
of.  It  produced  us  a  good  and  welcome  break- 
fast at  Mount  Jackson,  at  which  we  were  joined 
by  two  actors  and  two  actresses,  who  were  giv- 
ing entertainments  to  these  little  German  set- 
tlements, and  grand  concerts,  according  to  their 
bills.  They  got  into  the  stage-coach  after 
breakfast,  and  rode  with  us  seven  miles  to  New- 
market, where  they  had  an  engagement  to  per- 
form the  next  day,  admittance  being  25  cents, 
or  a  quarter  of  a  dollar.  We  found  them  very 
civil  people,  and  possessed  of  a  great  deal  of 
good  sense.  They  said  they  succeeded  tolera- 
bly well,  that  the  people  were  kind  to  them,  and 
that  they  managed  to  save  some  money.  There 
was  also  an  intelligent  sort  of  person  in  the 
stage-coach,  who  was  born  in  this  valley,  and 
was  a  nephew  to  one  of  the  richest  farmers  -r 
he  had  had  the  good  fortune,  however,  to  be 
sent  to  receive  his  education  at  a  college  in, 
Pennsylvania,  and  was  now  a  man  of  some  in- 
formation. He  gave  me  a  deplorable  account 
of  the  ignorance  and  superstition  of  the  German 
settlers  of  this  fine  valley,  where,  according  to- 
his  account,  human  dullness  could  not  be  car- 
ried much  further.  He  said,  that  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, they  all  believed  in  witchcraft  to  this 
day,  and  that,  only  last  year,  the  country  people 
refused  to  come  to  Mount  Jackson  with  eggs- 
and  other  products  of  their  farms,  because  a. 
strange  dog,  with  a  wild  look,  had  been  hunting 
in  the  neighbourhood  for  some  days,  and  had 
driven  some  cattle  into  the  Shenandoah.  It 
was  universally  agreed  by  them  that  this  dog^ 
was  the  devil ;  and  a  young  lawyer,  who  was. 
not  disposed  to  tranquillize  his  neighbours,  had 
gone  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  had  met  him  one 
evening  in  his  natural  shape,  with  two  eyes  of 
flaming  fire,  and  each  of  them  larger  than  his, 
head.  Upon  this  Hans  determined  not  to  stir 
from  home,  and  the  markets  continued  to  be 
bad  as  long  as  the  dog  was  known  to  he  about. 
Our  fellow-passenger  also  told  me,  that  an  old 
uncle  of  his,  who  was  worth  80,000  dollars, 
asked  him,  when  he  returned  from  college, 
what  he  had  learnt  there  that  he  could  not  have 
learnt  at  the  German  school.  His  nephew  told 
him,  that,  amongst  other  things,  he  had  learnt 
that  the  sun  did  not  go  round  the  world,  but 
that  it  stood  still,  and  the  world  went  round  it. 
Upon  which  the  old  man  said,  "You  dink  so, 
because  de  beobles  at  the  college  tells  you  so, 
hut  I  doesn't  dink  so,  pecause  I  knows  petter, 
and  I  ought  to  know  petter." 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Mount  Jackson  we 
a  very  beautiful  farm,  with  extensive 


TRAVELS  IN  AM  URIC  A. 


15 


rich  low  grounds,  owned  by  a  German  cattle- 
feeder  and  drover,  of  the  name  of  Sternberger, 
who  is  said  to  be  worth  300,000  dollars.  These 
Germans,  like  their  brethren  in  Pennsylvania, 
are  plodding,  frugal  persons,  who  hoard  their 
profits  in  hard  money,  entertain  a  great  dislike 
to  bank  paper,  and  a  still  greater  to  the  pay- 
ment of  taxes  ;  and  as  their  lands  are  continu- 
ally increasing  in  value,  are  becoming  a  very 
opulent  community.  Having  very  little  love  for 
their  countrymen,  the  English-talking  Ameri- 
cans, they  do  not  sympathize  much  with  their 
politics  ;  and  where  a  German  candidate  is  op- 
posed to  an  American,  are  furious  electioneer- 
ers.  In  Pennsylvania,  where  the  people  of  Ger- 
man origin  are  very  numerous,  they  control  the 
elections  entirely,  and  have  it  in  their  power  to 
put  the  government  into  the  hands  of  Germans, 
which  they  frequently  do  with  the  assistance  of 
a  democratic  minority  of  the  Americans.* 

Although  we  are  still  on  the  limestone,  sand- 
stone boulders  and  pebbles  begin  to  abound, 
evidently  the  remains  of  strata  once  forming  an 
integral  part  of  the  adjacent  ridges.  From 
Newmarket  we  continued  to  Harrisburgh,  a 
distance  of  18  miles,  where  we  dined.  This  is 
a  pretty  place,  and  has  a  sort  of  public  square 
with  some  good  bouses,  but  the  most  agreeable 
thing  I  saw  was  a  public  spring  of  excellent 
water,  which  they  had  had  the  good  taste  to 
build  a  wall  around,  in  the  centre  of  the  square. 
The  landlord  of  the  house  where  we  dined  was 
remarkably  obliging  and  attentive — indeed  we 
find  them  all  civil.  From  hence  we  proceeded 
to  Mount  Crawford,  eight  miles,  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  which  there  is  a  spring  of  water 
which  comes  through  the  sandstone.  We  next 
advanced  by  a  very  pretty  and  much  less  rough 
road  to  Mount  Sydney,  having  the  Blue  Ridge 
on  our  left  hand,  distant  about  12  miles.  The 
last  stage  to-day,  still  over  the  limestone,  was 
to  Staunton,  nine  miles,  a  good  town,  where 
we  found  a  decent  inn.  Here  we  were  very 
glad  to  get  some  repose  after  a  rough  ride. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ascent  of  the  first  Alleghany  Ridges — A  dandy  Rattlesnake 
—Magnificent  View  across  the  Alleghames  from  Warm 
Springs  Mountain — Affecting  Reception  at  the  Hotel  of 
the  Warm  Springs. 

WE  were  called  at  half-past  three  A.M.,  pre- 
paratory to  our  crossing  the  Allegheny  ridges, 
on  our  way  to  the  Warm  Springs,  distant  from 
hence  about  56  miles  ;  and  were  told  we  should 
find  the  road  good,  which  is  always  a  great 
comfort  where  a  lady  is  concerned.  Keeping 
with  the  limestone  to  Jennings'  Gap — one  of 
those  defiles  which  penetrate  these  ridges — 12 
miles,  we  came  to  a  clean  tavern  at  the  foot  of 
the  hills,  where  we  got  a  comfortable  breakfast. 
We  now  left  the  limestone  valley,  which  we 
had  followed  130  mi'es,  over  a  succession  of 
beds  of  limestone  and  slate,  dipping  to  the  east ; 
and  passing  the  Little  North  Mountain— which 
is  a  sort  of  advanced-guard  of  the  sandstone 
lidge  called  North  Mountain — where  the  land- 
lord told  me  coal  was  found  near  some  springs, 

*  The  dishonourable  conduct  of  the  state  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, in  relation  to  the  non-payment  of  its  debts,  is  fairly  at- 
tributable to  the  Germans 


we  came  to  the  main  ridge,  and  entered  it  at  a 
passage  called  Wti/ker'.t  Mountain,  which  has  a? 
mean  elevation  of  about  900  feet.  The  summit 
is  perhaps  two  miles  wide;  and  is  divided  again 
into  smaller  ridges,  with  depressions,  or  valleys 
and  hummocks,  imperfectly  separating  them. 
The  denseness  of  the  woods,  the  pleasant  air, 
the  refreshing  cheerfulness  of  the  mountain 
streams,  and  the  delight  at  finding  myself  once 
more  in  the  Alleghanies,  where  I  had  so  often 
wandered,  made  this  a  very  pleasant  day  to  me. 

Travelling  in  a  public  vehicle  would  seem  to 
present  singular  impediments  to  a  correct  in- 
vestigation of  the  geology  and  natural  history 
of  a  country,  as  no  doubt  it  does ;  and  if  I  had 
not  been  already  familiar  with  the  structure  of 
the  Allegheny  ridges  immediately  west  of  the 
Blue  Ridge,  I  should  have  regretted  the  very 
limited  opportunity  now  afforded  me  of  forming 
accurate  opinions.  The  general  principles, 
however,  of  what  was  already  known  to  me  of 
the  structure  and  direction  of  this  remarkable 
elevated  belt  were  confirmed  by  what  I  saw 
around.  The  reddish  and  grey  sandstones  of 
the  mountain^  the  slates  and  shales  that  alter- 
nate with  them,  the  limestones  in  the  valleys, 
and  the  general  anticlinal  structure  of  the  ridg- 
es, with  their  strata  dipping  in  contrary  direc- 
tions on  each  flank,  and  often  rising  again,  with 
their  imbedded  minerals  and  fossils,  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  valley,  sufficiently  bespeak, 
the  nature  of  the  movement  which  has  raised 
up  these  ridges,  and  left  the  valleys  like  fur- 
rows between  them.  Indeed,  I  was  delighted 
to  find  this  mode  of  travelling  not  so  barren  of 
opportunity,  but  that  I  could  derive  a  great  de- 
gree of  enjoyment  out  of  every  branch  of  natu- 
ral history  that  fell  in  my  way.  The  roads 
were  by  no  means  good  ;  the  country  was 
mountainous  and  rocky;  our  average  pace  did 
not  exceed  three  and  a  half  miles  an  hour;  and 
the  stage-coach  stopped  so  often  to  water  and 
change  horses,  that  we  had  an  opportunity  of 
walking  almost  whenever  we  pleased — a  privi- 
lege we  were  all  glad  to  avail  ourselves  of. 

As  we  were  strolling  up  a  hill,  we  had  the 
good  luck  to  surprise  a  young  dandy  of  a  rattle- 
snake, who  seemed  also  to  have  a  geological 
turn,  for  he  was  basking  at  the  mouth  of  his 
habitat,  a  warm  reddish  sandstone,  loaded  with 
fine  impressions  of  spirifers.  His  skin  had  a 
beautiful  velvety  appearance,  and  attracted  ad- 
miration from  us  all.  Poor  fellow  !  it  was  the 
most  unlucky  day  of  his  life,  for  it  was  his  last ; 
so,  after  making  some  fight,  he  gave  it  up  at 
length,  and  I  bore  away  eight  rattles  from  the 
gentleman's  tail. 

At  the  end  of  21  miles  we  reached  Clover- 
dale,  and  stopped  to  dine  at  a  tavern  where  we 
met  with  very  civil  people,  who  gave  me  all  the 
information  they  possessed  as  to  the  extent  of 
any  ridge,  about  which  I  inquired,  where  the, 
rock  changed,  where  limestone  was  to  be  seeai 
on  the  hill-sides,  and  where  in  the  valleys ; 
where  the  mountain  springs  came  through  fiee- 
stone,  as  they  call  all  sandstones  ;  where  min- 
eral springs  existed — coal,  minerals,  or  any  met- 
als, they  were  not  acquainted  with  ;  whether 
any  fossil  bones  had  been  found  in  caves  or  oth- 
er places;  any  rattlesnakes,  any  deer,  any  bears, 
any  panthers,  any  wild  cats,  or  any  thing  queer 
of  any  kind  whatsoever.  To  all  such  inquiries^ 


16 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


they  gave  rational  and  obliging  answers.  It  is  ' 
always  well  in  the  traveller  to  propound  ques- 
tions of  this  kind,  for  the  explanations  he  gives 
to  make  them  comprehend  him  set  them  think- 
ing, and  make  them  more  intelligent  sources  of 
information  to  those  who  succeed  him.  There 
is  something  very  delightful,  too,  in  the  racy 
stories  of  the  old  hunters  you  meet  in  these 
mountains  ;  some  of  which,  however,  it  is  quite 
as  well  to  receive  cum  grano  salis.  The  travel- 
ler who  takes  such  an  interest  in  the  country 
he  is  passing  through,  gets  through  it  in  a  friend- 
ly manner,  and  gleans  a  great  deal  of  informa- 
tion. At  this  place  we  had  venison  for  the  first 
time ;  but  the  haunch  was  so  wretchedly  par- 
boiled, and  then  put  into  the  oven,  which  they 
called  roasting,  that  I  was  not  tempted  to  taste 
it,  more  especially  as  I  saw  it  was  a  doe,  and 
had  not  the  least  fat  upon  it ;  for  the  hunters 
Mil  everything  they  meet,  even  a  doe  with  a 
fawn  running  by  her  side.  We  were  not  alone 
at  this  venison  feast ;  a  carriage-full  of  Ameri- 
can fashionables  from  one  of  the  large  towns 
assisted  at  it,  and  seemed  to  relish  the  wretch- 
ed stuff  surprisingly.  They  gobbled  up  and 
praised  the  tasteless  meat,  and  the  country  that 
produced  it,  as  if  nothing  better  could  be  ima- 
gined :  but  it  is  one  of  the  amiable  weaknesses 
of  the  cockney  part  of  this  patriotic  people,  that 
when  they  have  read  in  English  books  of  the  es- 
timation in  which  anything  is  held  in  England, 
they  invariably  believe  that  what  is  good  in  the 
Mother  Country,  from  civil  liberty  down  to  ven- 
ison, must  be  better  in  America  ;  and  so  con- 
trive to  make  themselves  as  happy  with  the 
shadow  of  things,  as  English  people  do  with  the 
reality. 

From  this  place  we  proceeded  to  the  Warm 
springs,  21  miles — a  very  interesting  drive- 
passing  through  a  valley  extremely  uneven, 
with  hummocks  of  limestone  here  and  there, 
and  made  agreeable  by  a  great  many  charming 
mountain-streams.  On  its  west  side  we  had  to 
cross  another  ridge  at  a  point  called  Warm 
Springs  Mountain,  but  which  was  formerly 
called  Jackson's  Mountain,  after  an  old  settler, 
whose  name  is  yet  preserved  in  Jackson's  Riv- 
er, the  south  fork  of  which  rises  in  the  next 
•valley,  where  the  Warm  springs  are.  The  mean 
height  of  this  ridge  is  about  850  feet,  and  its 
summit,  like  that  of  Walker's  Mountain,  is  about 
two  miles  wide.  The  road  which  leads  across 
it,  its  subordinate  ridges,  their  valleys  and  hum- 
mocks, is  a  very  good  one,  and  winds  for  about 
five  miles  from  the  east  to  the  west  base  of  the 
mountain.  More  than  two-thirds  of  this  dis- 
tance being  on  the  east  side  of  the  ridge,  I 
walked  up  it  at  leisure,  and  certainly  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  do  justice,  either  with  the  pencil  or 
language,  to  the  magnificent  objects  that  were 
continually  presenting  themselves.  Ascending 
the  mountain,  a  succession  of  deep  precipices 
and  glens  presented  themselves,  environed  with 
dark  blue  woods  and  obscure  bottoms  that  no 
eye  could  penetrate,  the  fit  habitations  of  pan- 
thers and  bears ;  whilst  from  the  western  edge 
of  the  summit  there  was  a  mighty  landscape  of 
the  Alleghany  ridges,  one  succeeding  to  the 
other,  almost  without  number,  until  the  most 
distant  was  shadowed  out  upon  the  horizon  hy 
a  pale  and  misty  magnitude,  that  invested  the 
whole  picture  with  sublimity,  and  created  an 


mpression  of  grandeur  too  lofty  to  be  scanned 
by  aught  living,  save 

"  The  lordly  eagle  when  from  craggy  throne 
He  mounts  the  storm  majestic  and  alone." 

With  one  of  the  wheels  locked,  we  commenced 
the  descent  of  the  mountain  at  speed  ;  the  dri- 
ver dashed  down  as  if  he  were  rnad  The  road 
was  good,  hut  curving  occasionally,  and  the 
precipices  were  fearful.  We  had  nothing  to  do 
jut  sit  still,  hold  our  breath,  and  believe  that  if 
we  got  down  safe  it  would  be  very  satisfactory. 
And  we  did  get  down  safe.  In  a  very  few  min- 
utes we  exchanged  the  tranquil  and  elevated 
feelings  that  are  inspired  hy  the  simple  honest 
dignity  of  nature,  for  the  distrust  which  ex- 
perienced travellers  entertain  of  the  obsequi- 
ously cordial  reception  which  in  every  country 
graces  their  arrival  at  the  hotels  of  watering- 
places. 

Until  it  is  determined  that  you  do  not  go  to 
the  rival  hotel,  the  zeal  in  your  service  is  over- 
whelming; the  landlord  brings  out  his  very  best 
politeness,  the  waiters  grin  and  bow,  and  the 
other  harpies  stand  ready  to  seize  upon  your 
luggage,  with  an  apparent  disinterestedness 
that  would  induce  a  novice  to  suppose  that  the 
fable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  was  acting  over  again. 
What  an  expenditure  of  fine  feeling  it  would 
cost  travellers  upon  observing  how  deeply  in- 
terested and  concerned  about  them  everybody 
appears  to  be,  if  it  were  not  for  the  rising  doubt 
that  their  concern  is  as  to  how  long  you  are 
going  to  stay,  and  how  much  money  they  are 
likely  to  get  from  you  !  Covered  with  dust,  and 
impatient  to  get  out  of  the  stage-coach,  we  soon 
announced  our  intention  to  stay  a  few  days. 
Having  taken  this  important  step,  our  luggage 
was  instantly  whipped  out  of  sight ;  and  sup- 
posing we  were  following  it,  we  ascended  some 
steps  to  the  portico  of  a  tolerably  large  hotel. 
On  gaining  this,  it  was  a  matter  that  excited 
our  admiration  to  perceive  how  suddenly  that 
anxious  solicitude,  of  which  we  had  so  lately 
been  the  objects,  had  assumed  an  abstract  po- 
sition. The  landlord  had  made  his  bows,  the 
waiters  their  grimaces,  our  names  had  been 
taken,  in  limine  in  libra,  and  being  regularly  bag- 
ged, we  were  left  to  provide  for  ourselves,  not 
a  soul  coming  near  us.  A  fiddle  was  screaking 
in  one  of  the  rooms ;  and  we  found  ourselves 
on  the  portico,  in  the  midst  of  a  number  of 
queer-looking  ladies,  with  and  without  tour- 
nures,  corseted  up  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  and 
their  hair  dressed  in  every  possible  form.  The 
gentlemen,  in  greater  numbers,  were  chewing, 
spitting,  and  smoking,  with  an  ease  that  evin- 
ced their  superiority,  and  all  staring  at  us  in 
the  most  determined  manner.  Nothing  was 
more  certain  than  that  we  were  out  of  the 
woods,  had  got  into  fashionable  society,  and 
were  now  going  to  depend  upon  the  tender 
mercies  of  landlords,  landladies,  and  dirty,  im- 
pudent, black  waiters.  After  a  good  deal  of 
trouble,  rooms  were  assigned  to  us ;  and  hav- 
ing made  our  toilette  and  got  some  refreshment, 
we  entered  the  public  parlour  for  awhile,  to  take 
a  look  at  those  who  had  done  us  the  favour  to 
stare  at  us  on  our  arrival ;  and  being  soon  sat- 
isfied, retired  to  get  some  repose  after  a  fatigu- 
ing day's  journey. 


TRAVELS  IN   AMERICA. 


17 


CHAPTER  III. 

A  Virginia  Hotel  in  the  Mountains— A  dancing  Land.oru— 
Incomparable  beauty  of  the  Warm  Baths — Their  gaseous 
and  solid  contents  —  The  Hot  Springs  —  Curious  effect 
produced  upon  them  by  an  Earthquake— Geological  Struc- 
ture of  the  Ridges  —  View  of  the  Alleghanies  and  the 
Warm  Springs  Valley. 

HAVING  risen  much  refreshed  at  the  dawn  of 
day,  I  went  to  the  Thermal  bath,  and  was  so 
struck  with  the  luxury  of  this  unrivalled  phe- 
nomenon, and  with  the  general  beauty  of  the 
valley  and  the  adjacent  neighbourhood,  that  I 
determined  to  remain  at  least  a  week.  During 
this  period  I  was  very  diligent  in  investigating 
everything  around  me,  and  committing  my  ob- 
servations to  my  note  book,  all  of  which  were 
transferred  to  my  journal  the  day  preceding  my 
departure,  which  was  on  the  12th  of  the  month. 
To  avoid  a  formal  entry  of  the  proceedings  of 
each  day,  I  shall  now  give  a  general  narrative 
of  what  1  observed,  both  of  the  manners  of  the 
place  and  the  structure  of  the  country,  with  an 
account  of  the  rare  thermal  waters  of  this  inter- 
esting place. 

And  first  as  to  what  is  personal.  Of  the  ho- 
tel at  the  Warm  springs  not  much  is  to  be  said 
in  commendation.  It  is  kept  by  an  old  inhabi- 
tant of  the  valley,  a  Col.  Fry,  a  very  worthy  per- 
sonage, who  is  much  respected  here,  as  he  re- 
ally deserves  to  be.  He  ha*  a  son,  a  very  obli- 
ging sort  of  person,  who  assists  him  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  hotel,  and  both  father  and  son 
are  not  wanting  in  attention  to  their  guests,  es- 
pecially to  the  ladies.  These  two  excellent 
persons  are  devoured  by  a  passion  for  dancing, 
and  it  used  to  be  my  great  deligbt,  on  my  re- 
turn from  excursions  in  the  mountains,  to  goto 
the  ball-room  in  the  evening  to  witness  the  ad- 
mirable performances  of  Col.  Fry  with  his  old 
lower  extremities.  The  house  is  an  awkward, 
ill-finished,  ill-furnished  building,  with  all  the 
pretension  of  a  well-established  hotel  in  an  old 
settled  country.  The  black  domestics  corre- 
spond with  the  furniture  and  everything  else. 
There  is  a  long  dining-room  with  a  low  ceiling, 
a  small  public  parlour  not  capable  of  containing 
one-fourth  of  the  company,  and  a  few  moderate- 
sized  bed-rooms,  in  which  families  are  accom- 
modated indifferently  enough.  Wood  cabins, 
out  of  the  house,  are  provided  for  single  people. 
The  portico  is  the  greatest  comfort  about  the 
place,  being  long  and  roomy,  and  affording  a 
comfortable  walk  for  invalids  and  ladies  in  the 
evening.  The  number  of  servants  is  quite  in- 
adequate to  the  crowd  of  company  that  is  some- 
times assembled  there,  and  there  is  an  eternal 
bawling  going  on  both  in  the  house  and  at  the 
doors  of  the  cabins,  before  breakfast  and  dinner, 
from  those  who  have  no  servants  of  their  own. 
"  Waiter,  there  ain't  not  a  drop  of  water  in  my 
pitcher."  "  Waiter,  who  under  arth  has  taken 
the  towel  out  of  my  chammber  V  "  Waiter,  I 
swar  you've  brought  me  two  odd  boots  ;  one's 
considerable  too  little,  and  the  t'other's  the  most 
almighty  big  thing  what  I  never  seed."  One 
night  there  was  quite  a  row  out  of  doors,  as  late 
as  eleven ;  somebody  trad  abstracted  all  the  pil- 
lows from  a  whole  line  of  cabins,  if  such  pin- 
cushions may  bu  called  by  that  name,  when  a 
Kentuckian  won  a  bet  that  he  would  put  nine 
of  them  into  his  coat  pocket.  At  length,  how- 
ever, they  were  found  under  the  mattrass  of 
some  one  who  had  probably  fancied  his  bed 
C 


was  hard,  and  who  had  gone  off  in  an  early 
stage  coach.  But  the  awful  hour  of  the  whole 
twenty-four  is  that  when  dinner  is  announced, 
and  when  the  grand  movement  of  ladies  and 
their  beaux  takes  place  to  the  dining-room. 
There  a  very  good  regulation  prevails  :  your 
name  is  put  on  your  plate,  so  that  your  seat  is 
reserved  and  no  one  has  a  right  to  take  it.  The 
last  comers  to  the  hotel  are  placed  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  table,  and  as  the  rest  of  the  company 
departs  are  "  promoted"  higher  up  towards  the 
top. 

During  our  promotion  we  had  many  neigh- 
bours and  sat  opposite  to  various  persons,  some 
of  whom  were  polite  and  interesting,  others 
very  much  the  reverse,  just  as  it  occurs  in  al- 
most every  situation  in  this  world.  The  effect 
of  this  constant  movement  was  to  bring  us  at 
last  to  the  very  head  of  the  company,  and  place 
me  next  to  the  good-natured  and  fat  landlady, 
who  did  the  honours  of  that  eternal  mass  of  ba- 
con which  is  always  the  head  dish  at  a  Virginia 
table.  Besides  this  huge  dish  of  bacon,  which 
left  no  room  for  anything  else  above,  there  were 
the  hams  of  the  fat  landlady  and  their  appen- 
dages, which  on  account  of  the  narrowness  of 
the  table  were  equally  in  my  way  below.  The 
meats,  which  were  abundant,  were  so  horribly 
ruined  in  the  cooking  that  it  was  exceedingly 
difficult  to  guess  what  they  were  composed  of. 
There  was,  however,  always  a  joint  of  mutton 
or  meagre  venison,  which  Col.  Fry,  who  was 
very  appropriately  dressed  in  a  blue  check  pina- 
fore with  sleeves  to  it,  carved  at  a  side-table. 
The  pastry  was  good  and  abundant,  with  plen- 
ty of  excellent  milk,  and  lumps,  of  beautiful 
transparent  ice  to  put  into  it,  a  luxury  which  is 
universal  in  the  pleasant  state  of  Virginia  from, 
the  mansion  of  the  hospitable  planter  down  to 
the  humblest  cottage.  As  to  the  servants,  they 
were  few  in  number  and  bad  ;  they  were  all 
slaves,  running  up  and  down  the  sides  of  the 
tables  to  change  plates  and  serve  water  to  the 
guests,  as  rapidly  as  if  they  were  on  horseback, 
endeavouring  to  make  up  by  activity  for  want 
of  numbers,  never  stopping  when  they  were 
called  to,  and  giving  you  no  chance  of  catching 
one  but  by  sticking  a  fork  into  him.  I  was  not 
often  present  at  this  ceremony,  hut  was  told  it 
was  the  same  thing  every  day,  Col.  Fry  always 
officiating  as  high-priest  in  his  blue  check  robes 
at  the  side-table,  skipping  from  it  to  change  the 
ladies'  plates,  and  if  any  one  of  them  rose  from 
the  dinner  table  to  leave  the  room,  he  was  in- 
stantly at  her  side,  armed  with  the  carving-knife 
in  his  right  hand,  and  presenting  his  left  arm  in 
his  most  insinuating  manner  to  conduct  her  to 
the  door.  ^This  extreme  politeness  not  having 
yet  travelled  to  the  Ohio,  tickles  the  Kentucky 
ladies  wonderfully,  and  they  are  said  t»  rise  of- 
ten from  the  table  for  the  sake  of  being  escorted 
by  the  martial  chief  carver  and  his  carving-knife 
of  state. 

There  was  another  exhibition  at  this  house  at 
which  I  was  frequently  present,  as  it  took  placs 
in  the  evening,  when  my  excursions  were  over. 
After  supper  it  is  the  custom  at  the  Warm 
Springs  to  adjourn  to  a  place  called  the  Ball- 
room, which  has  a  few  wooden  benches  round 
t,  and  one  fiddler.  This  performer  is  a  Paga- 
nini  in  his  way,  for  the  great  Italian  played  on 
one  string,  and  this  man  plays  on  one  tune,  for 


18 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


it  was  always  the  same.  Col.  Fry  takes  the 
most  especial  delight  in  this  tune  ;  he  is  never 
known  to  he  tired  of  it,  and  with  the  exception 
of  his  son,  prides  himself  upon  being  the  very 
first  gambado  in  Virginia.  He  certainly  is  the 
most  extraordinary  dancingtavern-keeper  I  have 
seen.  Both  father  and  son  piquing  themselves 
on  their  politeness,  no  sooner  is  the  business 
of  eating  over  for  the  day,  than  they  transform 
themselves  every  evening  into  masters  of  the 
ceremonies;  every  lady  as  she  enters  the  ball- 
room is  whipped  up  by  one  of  them  and  dragged 
to  one  of  the  benches,  a  proceeding  which  is 
somewhat  amusing  the  first  evening  of  a  lady's 
arrival,  when  she  does  not  know  who  they  are 
or  what  they  are  going  to  do  with  her.  As 
soon  as  enough  are  assembled  to  make  a  qua- 
drille, the  Fry  firm  pounce  upon  two  of  the  last 
comers  to  the  hotel,  refuse  to  take  "  No"  for 
an  answer,  and  literally  haul  their  partners  to 
the  dance.  Then  commences  the  glory  of  Col. 
Fry  and  his  son,  in  the  profound  solemnity  of 
his  bows,  the  indescribable  flourishes  they  both 
make  with  their  legs,  and  the  unremitting  at- 
tention they  give  to  every  minutia  of  the  dance. 
If  the  lady  to  whom  the  Colonel  is  dancing 
should  be  talking  to  her  next  neighbour,  and 
does  not  commence  an  instantaneous  fluttera- 
tion  with  her  lower  extremities,  the  Colonel 
skips  to  her  side  and  raises  a  preposterous  clap- 
ping close  to  her  ears  with  the  palms  of  his 
hands,  so  that  in  the  course  of  the  first  quadrille 
he  brings  them  to  such  a  state  of  discipline,  that 
they  become  as  much  afraid  of  him  as  if  he  was 
one  of  the  hears  of  his  own  mountains;  and 
when  he  seizes  them  by  both  hands  to  give 
them  one  of  his  grand  whisks  round,  they  sub- 
mit with  all  the  resignation  of  a  bird  in  the  tal- 
ons of  a  hawk.  The  Colonel  loves  to  hear  his 
son  praised,  and  admits  that  he  dances  the 
modern  style  better  than  himself;  "but,"  says 
the  Colonel,  "  I  do  more  work  with  my  legs 
than  he  does,  and  at  any  rate  he  can't  spring  so 
high." 

These  peculiarities  in  an  innkeeper  appear 
very  odd  to  those  to  whom  they  are  altogether 
new,  but  the  Virginians  are  accustomed  to  these 
manners,  and  estimate  these  accomplishments 
in  the  landlord  highly.  The  truth  is,  that  he  is 
a  very  worthy,  obliging  man,  and  lived  here 
when  visifers  could  hardly  get  accommodations 
of  any  kind  ;  so  that,  being  the  sole  dispenser 
of  all  comforts,  he  has  been  at  all  times  the 
most  important  personage  on  the  spot.  Indeed, 
it  behoves  every  one  who  is  passing  through  an 
unsettled  district  to  have  some  deference  for 
the  landlord,  especially  if  there  is  no  other  house 
within  twenty  or  thirty  miles  ;  the,  host  feels 
this  his.advantage  over  the  traveller,  and  thus 
a  custom,  the  reverse  of  that  which  obtains  in 
the  towns,  has  grown  up  in  the  interior  of  Amer- 
ica, of  the  guests  paying  attention  to  thelandlord, 
instead  of  the  landlord  paying  attention  to  the 
guests. 

Whilst  here  I  became  acquainted  with  the 
resident  physician,  Dr.  Strother,  a  man  of  good 
sense,  and  whom  I  should  think  a  safe  medical 
advisor.  From  him  I  obtained  a  great  deal  of 
interesting  information  regarding  many  locali- 
ties in  the  neighbourhood,  and  always  found  his 
conversation  instructive  and  agreeable.  It  is 
very  important  to  those  who  use  these  warm 


springs  as  a  hath  to  consult  this  able  physician, 
as  many  persons  have  injured  themselves  by  a 
too  free  -use  of  them.  Considering  how  sur- 
prisingly beautiful  and  luxurious  they  are,  this 
is  not  surprising.  They  rise  through  the  lime- 
stone in  a  marshy  piece  of  ground,  partly  over- 
flowed by  the  south  fork  of  Jackson's  River, 
which  heads  about  three  miles  N.E.  up  the  val- 
ley. Over  the  main  bath  a  rough  octagonal 
building  has  been  raised,  open  at  the  top  :  the 
diameter  of  the  bath  at  the  bottom  is  about 
thirty-five  feet,  and  the  average  depth  is  about 
five  feet.  When  you  enter  the  door  of  the- 
building  you  feel  a  heat  equal  to  that  of  a  for- 
cing-house, but  you  soon  lose  all  consciousness 
of  it  in  the  contemplation  of  what  is  before 
you.  First,  you  are  struck  with  the  unrivalled 
beauty  of  the  water,  which  is  so  enchantingly 
pellucid,  that  you  think  you  never  saw  any 
water  so  diaphanous  before,  not  even  the  wa- 
ters of  the  Rhone  where  they  issue  from  the 
Lake  of  Geneva.  Then  the  gaseous  matter, 
which  keeps  the  water  in  a  constant  playful 
stateof  ebullition,  sometimes  sending  up  streams 
of  large  bubbles,  then  firing  offa/e«  dc  joie  in  a 
perfect  shower  of  smaller  ones.  Enter  when 
you  will,  it  is  playing  and  sparkling  like  a  vast 
reservoir  of  champagne,  and  you  would  be  never 
satisfied  with  looking  on  and  admiring  this  un- 
rivalled spectacle,  and  would  continue  for  hours 
to  look  and  admire,  if  the  perspiration  trickling 
down  your  face  did  not  remind  you  that  such  a 
hot  place  was  not  made  to  remain  all  day  in. 
But  what  words  can  do  justice  to  the  luxury  of 
plunging  into  and  playing  about  in  this  pool  of 
perfect  delight1?  Next  to  Champagne  frappi  de 
glace,  which  is  certainly  the  most  glorious  in- 
vention after  a  hot  day's  hard  geological  work, 
I  think  this  water,  frappi  de  chateur,  is  the  great- 
est enjoyment  in  the  world,  to  any  one  who,, 
rising  with  the  dawn,  has  been  occupied  until 
noon  wading  through  a  burning  sun,  climbing 
the  rugged  mountain's  side,  hammering  rocks, 
poking  his  half-willing  hand — doubtful  of  the 
rattle-snake — into  holes  after  snail  shells,  and 
who  has  had  to  trudge  back  with  his  pockets 
and  hands  full  of  specimen?,  and  with  feet  and 
arms  equally  tired.  It  would  be  difficult  for 
him  to  imagine  aught  that  could  rival  this  ex- 
traordinary bath,  where  the  temperature  is 
about  98°  Fahr,  and  where  streams  of  gas  go 
gently  creeping  over  his  body,  as  if  little  fishes 
were  nibbling  at  him  ;  where  he  has  ample 
room  to  flounder  about,  and  entertains  no  ap- 
prehensions of  a  cold  shock  when  he  jumps  in, 
or  of  cold  air  when  he  jumps  out. 

I  was  careful,  however,  never  to  pass  more 
than  fifteen  minutes  in  it ;  that  period  was  suf- 
ficient to  refresh  me,  and  instead  of  being  sleepy 
and  heavy  after  I  came  out,  I  felt  more  lively 
and  ready  for  conversation  than  at  any  other 
time.  It  was  fortunate,  too,  that  my  leisure 
hour  was  the  only  one  during  the  morning  when 
I  could  have  the  large  bath  to  myself.  From 
four  in  the  morning  this  bath  was  appropriated 
every  alternate  two  hours  to  the  two  sexes.  I 
was  told  that  sometimes  twenty  women  would 
be  in  it  altogether,  and  fine  fun  no  doubt  they 
had,  if  one  might  judge  from^he  laughter  and 
noise  that  proceeded  from  the  place  at  such 
times.  The  men,  too,  are  not  less  gregarious, 
and  thus  convert  the  most  delicate  of  luxuries 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


19 


into  a  state  of  things  almost  as  bad,  I  should 
suppose,  as  that  in  the  Penitentiary.  Old  sick 
men,  young  boys,  husbands  of  charming  wives, 
fathers  of  beautiful  daughters,  all  in  the  same 
pickle  together,  mingling  with  the  most  extra 
ordinary  looking  tobacco-chewing,  expectora 


ters.  To  the  left  of  the  road,  as  you  approach 
the  hotel,  are  several  warm  springs,  as  well  as 
a  most  delicious  cold  one  ;  but  the  Hot-springs, 
which  are  used  as  baths,  lie  to  the  right,  imme- 
diately in  front  of  the  hotel.  A  new  circular 
bath  has  been  recently  constructed  here,  with  a 


ting,  and  villainous  looking  nondescripts.  Where    diameter  of  more  than  thirty  feet,  but  it  pos- 


are  the  waters  that"  could  underlie  a  man  after 
coming  out  of  such  a  polluted  liquid1?  When  I 
was  not  so  fortunate  as  to  find  the  public  bath 
vacant,  I  used  to  secure  a  more  modest  bath 
adjacent  to  the  large  one,  in  a  very  nice,  and 
not  a  very  small  private  place,  where  you  are 
privileged  to  be  alone. 

The  marshy  ground  in  which  these  baths  are 
situated,  contains  in  the  three  or  four  acres 
which  it  comprehends,  a  prodigious  variety  of 
springs,  differing  perhaps  in  nothing  but  their 
temperature,  which  varies  a  little.  Myriads  of 
bubbles  are  rising  in  every  part  of  the  brook, 
which  will  no  doubt  be  enclosed  at  some  future 
day  to  increase  the  number  of  baths.  Near  to 
the  modest  bath  a  spring  has  been  enclosed, 
which  is  called  the  "  Drinking  Spring  :"  this 
has  been  rudely  fitted  up  for  the  visitors  to  re- 
sort to,  and  is  said  to  be  used  medicinally  with 
success.  The  temperature  is  somewhat  lower 
than  that  of  the  large  bath,  being  94°  Fahr,  and 
it  evolves  a  slight  quantity  of  sulphuretted  hy- 
drogen, which  is  not  very  disagreeable,  leaving 
a  taste  in  the  mouth  not  stronger  than  that  which 
is  produced  by  the  albumen  of  a  boiled  egg.  The 
gaseous  contents  of  these  waters  were  princi- 
pally nitrogen,  carbonic  acid,  and  a  little  sul- 
phuretted hydrogen.*  The  soluble  salts  are 
carbonate,  and  sulphate  of  lime  with  magnesia. 
Small  crystals  of  sulphate  of  magnesia  are  some- 
times found  attached  to  stones  where  the  spray 
of  the  water  has  beaten,  and  a  great  deposit 
of  carbonate  of  lime  mixed  with  a  small  propor- 
tion of  sulphate  is  made  wherever  the  stream 
runs,  for,  in  proportion  as  it  becomes  exposed  to 
the  air,  the  carbonic  acid  forsakes  the  lime, 
which  is  then  precipitated.  Lower  down,  where 
the  public  road  crosses  the  stream,  this  ealca- 
rous  deposit  is  very  considerable,  and  forms  a 
body  of  travertine  upon"  which  you  can  walk 
across  the  stream. 

During  my  residence  at  this  place  I  walked 
over  to  the  Hol-spnngs,  about  five  miles  distant, 
in  a  south-western  direction,  down  the  same 
valley.  About  half  a  mile  on  the  road  there  is 
a  well-defined  gap  to  the  right  through  the  Back- 
water Mountain  ;  and  here  it  is  evident  from 
the  scooping  out  of  the  bottom,  that  when  the 
waters  anciently'  retired  from  this  district,  the 
stream  that  has  contributed  to  the  denudation 
of  the  valley  has  deflected,  and  caused  the  gap 
through  which  the  road  to  Huntersville  now  runs. 
About  four  and  a  half  miles  from  this  is  anoth- 
er very  picturesque  gap,  scooped,  as  it  were, 
out  of  the  mountain,  the  slopes  of  which  have  a 
graceful  inclination  to  the  bottom.  This  gap 
is  the  termination  of  a  short  valley  of  about 
2500  yards,  that  here  intersects  the  main  val- 
ley, which,  together  with  thehi^h.  road,  it  cross- 
es at  right  angles.  In  this  short  valley  are  the 
hot-springs,  with  a  small  hotel  for  the  reception 
of  persons  who  come  for  the  benefit  of  the  wa- 


*  Dr.  Daubeny.  of  Oxford,  who 
in  1S3S,  found  the 
u.-«n,  6  carbonic  acid 


visited  the  warm  springs 
ous  contents  to  consist  of  96  ritro- 
d  4  oxygen. 


sees  little  of  that  natural  beauty  which 
striking  in  the  principal  bath  at  the  warm 
springs,  although  the  water  is  very  transparent. 
It  is  also  inferior  in  another  respect ;  .Dr.  Goode, 
the  proprietor,  having  by  a  great  oversight  omit- 
ted to  enclose  several  very  copious  springs, 
with  their  beautiful  jets  of  gas  quite  adjacent 
to  the  others,  and  having  in  their  place  enclosed 
a  quantity  of  dead  ground.  The  temperature 
was  94°,  but  would  no  doubt  have  been  higher 
but  for  this  mistake,  which  has  shut  out  at  least 
one  hundred  points  of  ebullition  ;  for  in  a  con- 
tiguous bath,  called  the  Spout  Bath,  from  its  be- 
ing brought  a  short  distance  in  a  spout,  and 
made  to  fall  from  it  into  a  reservoir,  the  tem- 
perature was  102°  Fahr.  These  waters  appear 
Ux  be  identical  with  each  other  as  to  their  con- 
stitutents,  they  all  produce  travertine,  and  have 
a  different  proportion  of  carbonic  acid  from  that 
in  the  waters  of  the  Warm  springs.*  To  the 
east  of  the  road  there  is  a  singularly  charming 
water,  such  as  I  have  never  met  with  before. 
It  is  collected  in  a  section  of  hollow  tree,  called 
a  gum  (because  the  liquid-ambar  styraaflua,  or 
gum-tree,  is  generally  used  for  this  purpose), 
which  is  sunk  in  the  ground;  and,  although  it 
possesses  a  temperature  of  101°  Fahr.,  it  has 
the  property  of  quenching  thirst  as  well  as  cool 
water,  at  least  it  produced  that  effect  upon  me. 
Being  warmed  with  my  walk,  and  hearing  Dr. 
Goode  talk  of  a  fine  spring  of  cool  water  rising 
amidst  the  other  springs  which  were  all  hot, 
my  imagination  was  dwelling  upon  this  cool 
spring  long  before  we  reached  it ;  but  having 
tasted  the  water  in  the  gum  first,  I  found  it  so 
agreeable  that  I  drank  three  glasses  of  it,  and 
allayed  my  thirst  so  perfectly,  that  I  had  no  de- 
sire to  drink  from  the  cool  spring  when  we 
reached  it ;  and,  indeed,  feeling  thirsty  again, 
before  I  went  away,  I  hesitated  for  sonre  time 
which  of  the  two  I  should  prefer,  and  was  final- 
ly so  pleased  with  the  recollection  of  the  warm 
water  that  I  gave  it  the  preference,  and  was 
very  well  satisfied  that  I  had  done  so.  This 
was  the  first  time  I  ever  supposed  warm  water 
could  produce  any  effect  upon  me  but  that  of  an. 
emetic.  This  is,  probably,  a  very  valuable  wa- 
ter, of  which  time  will  disclose  the  great  prop- 
erties ;  it  is  agreeable  to  the  palate,  and  can  be 
taken  into  the  stomach  in  large  quantities  with-, 
out  disgust  or  inconvenience.  It  has  an  agree- 
able chalybeate  flavour,  and  is  slightly  acidula- 
ted with  carbonic  acid  ;  and  I  understand  from 
the  proprietor  that  the  country  people  admired 
it  as  much  as  I  had  done,  and  that  it  had  ob- 
tained the  name  of  the  Sweet  Spring.  Very 
near  to  this  rises  the  cool  spring,  conning  through 
the  limestone  with  a  temperature  of  60°  Fahr. 
It  is  a  very  pure  water,  and  is  called  the  Free- 
stone Spring,  a  very  common  name  giverl  to 
rock  springs. 

Whilst  I  was  standing  at  this  spring  with  Dr. 
Goode,  he  related  to  me  that  during  the  last 


*  Dr.  Daubeny  examined  these  waters,  and   found  the 
gaseous  matter  to  be  composed  of  6  oxygen  and  94  nitrogen. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


summer,  when  sitting  one  day  over  the  gum— 
which  usually  is  full  to  within  two  inches — the 
water  in  it  suddenly  rose  in  a  body  and  over- 
flowed its  edges  ;  this  it  continued  to  do  for  about 
two  minutes,  when  a  violent  ebullition  of  gas 
commenced  which  lasted  three  or  four  minutes 
more.  The  water  now,  from  a  pure  transparent 
state,  became  suddenly  turbid,  and  remained  so 
for  some  time.  Struck  with  this  unusual  phe- 
nomenon he  left  the  gum,  and  went  to  the  baths 
to  see  if  the  waters  were  disturbed  there  also, 
but  there  was  no  apparent  change,  and  he  found 
no  reason  to  believe  that  the  other  waters  had 
been  at  all  disturbed.  At  his  return  to  the  gum 
he  found  the  waters  clear  again,  and  at  the  or- 
dinary level.  The  phenomenon  had  never  been 
repeated.  Some  time  after  this,  looking  into  a 
newspaper,  he  read,  that  on  the  very  day,  and 
at  the  hour  he  observed  this  disturbance,  a  se- 
vere earthquake  had  been  felt  in  the  central 
parts  of  Virginia.  As  I  remembered  this  earth- 
quake very  distinctly,  I  noted  Dr.  Goode's  day 
and  hour,  and  on  my  return  consulted  my  Jour- 
nal of  last  year,  and  found  that,  being  on  a  visit 
with  rriy  son  to  Mr.  Madison,  the  ex-president, 
at  his  seat  of  Montpelier,  in  Orange  County, 
Virginia,  we  made  an  excursion  into  the  Coun- 
ty of  Louisa,  and  passed  a  night  at  the  house 
•of  a  worthy  gentleman  named  Halliday,  who 
related  to  us  that  the  earthquake  took  place 
precisely  at  the  time  when  Dr.  Goode  noted  the 
disturbance  of  the  spring ;  that  the  movement 
was  sensibly  felt  upon  his  plantation  and  in  his 
house,  and  created  a  general  dismay  in  the 
neighbourhood.  It  was  the  subject  of  ct>nver- 
sation  a  long  time  after  its  occurrence,  and  hav- 
ing collected  information  respecting,  it  from 
other  quarters,  Mr.  Halliday  thought  he  was 
warranted  in  believing  that  his  own  residence 
•was  a  sort  of  central  point,  towards  which  all 
the  rumblings  converged  that  had  been  heard 
from  within  fifteen  miles  of  his  plantation.  He 
had  taken  up  the  idea  that  the  phenomenon  did 
not  proceed  from  a  cause  acting  subterraneous- 
ly,  but  that  it  had  its  origin  in  the  atmosphere, 
and  was  of  the  nature  of  a  discharge  of  electric 
matter.  A  very  long  drought  had  succeeded 
to  a  very  rainy  season,  that  had  lasted  five 
weeks.  This  was  the  same  year  that  the  great 
meteoric  discharge  took  place  in  November, 
1833,  and  which,  though  silent  as  the  play  of 
the  Aurora  Borealis,  was  singularly  brilliant 
and  copious  at  Fredericsburg,  in  Virginia,  where 
I  happened  to  be  at  the  time. 

In  regard  to  the  geological  structure  of  this 
part  of  the  country,  most  of  these  ridges  have 
an  anticlinal  structure  exceedingly  disturbed, 
the  order  of  superposition  of  the  rocks  being 
sandstone,  limestone,  and  slate.  In  many  parts 
the  most  important  beds  have  been  carried  away, 
as  appears  to  have  been  the  case  at  the  Warm 
Springs  Mountain,  where  there  is  sufficient  evi- 
dence that  the  surface  of  the  country  was  much 
higher  at  the  first  heaving  up  of  this  mountain  ; 
the  rocks  in  many  places  dipping  to  the  east  al- 
most vertically,  whilst  across  they  dip  to  the 
west,  showing  that  those  which  covered  the  in- 
tervening space  must  have  been  rent  asunder 
by  the  movement.  The  limestone  of  the  Warm 
Springs  Valley  appears  to  be  of  the  age  of  that 
which  I  had  so  long  followed,  of  the  Valley  of 
Shenandoah,  and  it  is  through  this  that  the 


thermal  waters  arise,  in  consequence  of  the 
vent  which  has  been  given  to  them  by  the 
mighty  upheaval  and  removal  of  this  mass  of 
mineral  matter.  In  this  Valley  of  the  Warm 
Springs,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  ho- 
tel, up  a  road  on  the  left  of  the  ascent  of  the 
Warm  Springs  Mountain  in  a  N.E.  direction,  is 
a  limestone  bed  containing  fine  impressions  of 
producta,  closely  resembling  P.  Martini,  with 
flustra,  cyathophyllum,  cellepora,  astrea,  &c., 
and  I  found  specimens  from  this  rock  so  much 
resembling  those  of  the  Dudley  limestone  in 
England,  and  of  other  calcareous  rocks  near 
Lake  Erie,  that  both  from  the  character  of  the 
fossils  and  the  interesting  groups  which  are 
presented,  they  would  seem  to  be  equivalents. 

From  the  pinnacle  of  the  Warm  Springs 
Mountain  (distant  about  3000  feet  from  the  toll- 
house at  the  summit  of  the  road),  which  is,  per- 
haps, about  1100  feet  from  the  valley,  and  which 
is  formed  by  a  heap  of  white  quartzose  sand- 
stone, there  is  a  splendid  and  most  instructive 
series  of  views  of  the  Alleghany  ridges.  The 
view  to  the  east  is  very  magnificent,  but  I  se- 
lected that  to  the  west  in  order  to  include  the 
Warm  Springs  Valley,  which  is  analogous,  ac- 
cording to  its  extent,  to  the  other  valleys  which 
respectively  separate  the  ridges  ;  and  my  son 
made  a  sketch,  which  very  faithfully  represents 
the  character  of  the  landscape.  The  view 
across  the  mountains  extends,  perhaps,  forty 
miles,  the  various  ridges  all  appearing  very  dis- 
tinctly, holding  a  parallel  course  to  each  other 
from  N.N.E.  to  N.E.,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  irregular  and  transverse  ridges  that  He 
across  the  valleys  in  some  parts  of  the  country  ; 
these  have  generally  passages  or  gaps — as  they 
are  here  called — at  one  end  or  the  other,  or  in 
the  centre,  unless  one  or  more  large  gaps  di- 
vide the  ridges  at  some  point  adjacent  to  them. 

These  gaps  are  numerous  and  picturesque, 
and  it  frequently  happens  that  when  the  geolo- 
gist has  been  strolling  for  miles  in  some  narrow 
valley  hemmed  in  by  ridges  600  or  800  feet 
high,  he  comes  upon  one  of  them  wide  at  the  top 
with  a  graceful  slope,  and  a  talus  of  detritus  to 
the  bottom,  like  the  gap  of  the  Backwater 
Ridge,  which  confines  the  Valley  of  the  Warm 
Springs  to  the  west,  and  which  suddenly  opens, 
and  gives  an  ample  and  beautiful  peep  upon  a 
heavy  ridge,  which  has  the  distinctive  name  of 
the  Alleghany  Mountain,  and  sometimes  the 
Backbone  Ridge,  from  its  being  a  watershed  for 
the  sources  of  rivers  that  flow  from  its  west 
flank  to  empty  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
from  its  east  flank  to  empty  into  the  Atlantic 
Ocean. 

It  is  through  these  gaps  that  the  waters  have 
probably  escaped  which  retired  from  the  dis- 
tricts when  these  ridges  were  upheaved  from 
the  ocean,  the  channels  by  which  they  retired 
being  most  likely  governed  by  the  relative  soft- 
ness of  the  strata.  The  temperature  in  these 
valleys  is,  of  course,  much  higher  than  on  the 
ridges.  On  the  8th  of  August  I  observed  it  at 
nine  o'clock  A.M.,  on  the  pinnacle  of  the  Warm 
Springs  Mountain,  at  74°,  whilst,  by  a  corre- 
sponding observation,  made  in  the  valley,  it 
was  88°  Fahr.  At  that  elevation  the  westerly 
winds  have  their  freshness  unchanged  by  the 
radiation  and  reflection  of  heat  below,  and  are, 
as  I  have  often  experienced  on  sultry  days,  per- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


fectly  refreshing.  One  day,  whilst  I  was  sit- 
ting on  one  of  the  loftiest  peaks  enjoying  the 
grandeur  of  the  view,  a  humming-bird  flew  past 
me,  the  only  one  I  saw  at  that  height.  Land- 
shells  also  are  very  scarce  at  this  elevation  :  I 
found  some  helices,  however,  in  a  cleft  of  the 
white  sandstone  at  the  top  of  the  ridge.  The 
pines  are  scrubby  at  these  summits,  and  the 
Calmia  latifolia  and  the  Vaccinium  frondosum 
or  whortleberry,  are  found  at  the  highest  points. 
The  other  plants  on  the  slopes  of  the  ridges  are 
chestnut,  hickory,  walnut,  (Juglans),  linden,  lo- 
cust (Robinia  pseudo-acacia),  and  oaks  red  and 
white.  The  flies  that  frequent  the  tops  of  the 
ridges  are  a  very  large-sized  variety.  I  met 
with  no  snakes  except  the  rattle-snake  before 
mentioned.  Animals  of  chase  are  rarely  found 
in  this  part  of  the  country  except  when  mast  is 
plentiful.  The  bears  and  deer  have  generally 
retreated  to  situations  where  man  does  not  tor- 
ment them  so  much,  and  only  return  when  food 
is  scarce  in  their  own  districts,  and  when  chest- 
nuts and  the  acorns  of  the  white  oak,  of  which 
the  deer  are  fond,  abound  here.  At  such  times 
the  panther  (Felis  discolor),  comes  for  the  same 
reason,  not  because  he  eats  chestnuts,  but  be- 
cause he  knows  that  he  shall  find  deer  there. 
The  sportsmen  and  dogs  in  the  neighbourhood 
are  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  game,  and  the 
few  deer  that  remain  alive  in  the  vicinity  are  so 
worried  by  the  dogs,  that  their  meat  is  thin  and 
not  worth  eating.  Bears  are  verv  seldom  seen. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  celebrated  White  Sulphur  Springs— Mr.  Anderson,  a 
character— Description  of  this  Watering  Place— Beauty 
of  the  Alleghany  Mountain — Our  various  adventures  at 
a  Blacksmith's  Boarding-house  and  Alabama  Row— An 
old  Lady  makes  a  double  somerset — Our  removal  to 
Compulsion  Row. 

ON  the  12th  of  August,  a  little  after  4  A.M,, 
we  all  got  into  the  stage-coach  for  the  White 
Sulphur  Springs,  the  great  point  of  attraction 
to  all  visitors  to  these  mountains.  At  the  end 
of  six  miles  we  came  to  -a  gradual  descent 
through  a  very  romantic  woodland  ravine,  which 
lasted  eight  miles,  to  Shoemates,  where  we 
breakfasted.  From  this  place  to  Callahan's,  13 
miles,  a  sort  of  outlying  mountain  is  crossed, 
formed  of  a  decomposing  sandstone,  which  is 
in  some  places  very  ferruginous  ;  this  rock  co- 
heres so  little,  that  at  the  summit  of  the  hill  the 
sand  is  quite  deep.  Callahan's  tavern  is  in  a 
very  agreeable  valley  basin,  and  has  that  lofty 
ridge,  which  is  specially  called  Alleghany 
Mountain,  in  front.  The  house  is  neat,  and 
promises  some  comfort,  having  a  spring  of  deli- 
cious cool  water  near  to  it.  The  next  stage 
of  15  miles  lies  for  the  greater  part  over  the 
Alleghany  Mountain  just  mentioned,  which  ap- 
peared to  consist  principally  of  slate  and  fissile 
sandstone.  On  the  summit  I  found  fossiliferous 
sandstone  in  place,  with  the  usual  spirifers,  en- 
crini,  &c.  The  trees  on  this  ridge  are  well 
grown,  and  here,  as  well  as  in  most  of  these 
mountains,  I  observed  that  the  ridges  on  their 
slopes  are  not  craggy,  but  are  covered  with  a 
strong  productive  arable  soil,  capable  of  yield- 
ing 40  bushels  of  Indian  corn  to  the  acre.  Oc- 
casionally I  have  observed  fields  of  this  corn  at 


an  elevation  of  700  feet  above  the  valleys,  and 
when  these  slopes  are  worked  with  horizontal 
ploughing  along  the  sides  of  the  ridges,  the  soil 
is  not  carried  away  by  the  rains,  as  in  the  red 
lands  of  the  central  counties  of  Virginia,  where 
vertical  ploughing  is  practised,  which  creates 
gulleys  and  chasms  so  broad  as  to  lead  in  many 
instances  to  the  abandonment  of  the  land.  This, 
therefore,  will  make  a  good  grazing  country  in 
time,  and  maintain  a  large  population.  At  pres- 
ent, lands  in  a  state  of  nature,  not  distant  from 
the  main  roads,  can  be  obtained  at  from  three 
to  five  dollars  an  acre,  when  in  accessible  situ- 
ations ;  at  greater  distances  large  tracts  may 
be  obtained  for  50  cents,  and  even  as  low  as- 
sixpence  sterling  an  acre,  the  parties  in  whom 
the  title  lies  living  at  a  distance,  and  wishing 
to  sell  it  at  any  price  rather  than  pay  taxes  for 
what  they  derive  no  benefit  from.  For  a  long 
period  the  farmers  of  this  part  of  the  country 
will  be  obliged  to  pack  all  their  agricultural  pro- 
ductions into  the  shape  of  hogs  and  cattle  capa- 
ble of  carrying  themselves  to  market,  but  there 
are  many  things— if  managed  with  prudence 
and  skill — would  repay  the  exertions  of  active 
men  ;  fine  wools,  fat  sheep,  fat  cattle,  and  even 
good  tobacco,  I  am  persuaded  might  be  raised 
here.  If  the  rocky  surfaces  and  uncertain  cli- 
mate of  New  Hampshire,  and  some  parts  of 
Connecticut  and  New  York,  afford  a  heartjr 
subsistence  to  industry,  and  permit  prudent 
men  to  bring  up  large  families  in  a  happy  and 
honourable  manner,  certainly  these  fertile  and 
salubrious  hills  might  do  the  same. 

We  had  heard  from  various  persons  at  the 
Warm  Springs,  who  knew  the  place  we  were 
going  to,  many  rumours  relating  to  the  White 
Sulphur  Springs,  which— notwithstanding  their 
great  celebrity  at  a  distance — were  of  an  un- 
promising character ;  we  had  been  told  that  the 
establishment  was  full  to  repletion — that  all 
persons  were  refused  accommodation,  whatever 
their  respectability  might  be,  unless  they  brought 
horses  and  carriages  with  them  to  augment  the 
sum  total  of  expenditure.  Any  little  lawyer  or 
storekeeper  in  Virginia,  by  rigging  out  a  dirty 
old  vehicle,  and  travelling  with  it  at  the  rate  of 
25  miles  a  day,  could,  we  were  assured,  gel  in? 
whilst  those  who  came  in  the  sta^e-coach  only 
got  out,  for  the  sober  truth  was,  that  if  they 
would  not  receive  you,  there  was  no  other  place 
to  go  to.  Persons,  therefore,  of  the  greatest 
worth,  seeking  relief  from  the  waters,  and  who 
came  in  the  stage-coach  because  they  would 
not  destroy  a  good  equipage  and  horses  in  a 
long  journey  of  five  or  six  hundred  miles,  were 
said  to  be  turned  away  without  ceremony,  or 
directed  to  farm-houses  in  the  neighbourhood, 
under  strong  promises  to  provide  quarters  for 
them  the  next  day ;  and  were  thus  kept  de  die 
in  diem  with  renewed  promises  and  lying  excu- 
ses until  their  patience  was  exhausted.  In  ad- 
dition to  this,  we  were  told  that  if  you  did  get 
in,  you  were  poisoned  and  embittered  by  a  filth, 
a  confusion,  a  want  of  common  honesty,  and  a 
total  want  of  personal  comfort,  that  rendered 
the  days  and  nights  equally  horrible. 

We  were  ill  prepared  for  such  a  state  of  things, 
for  our  friend  Colonel  Fry  had  certainly  done 
his  best  for  us  both  in  the  way  of  comfort  and 
dancing,  and  we  had  left  him  with  the  kindliest 
feelings.  On  our  approach  to  the  White  Sul- 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 


phur  Springs,  therefore,  my  mind  was  some- 
what disturbed  as  to  what  our  fate  would  be.  I 
had  a  lady  with  me  who  was  an  invalid,  and 
who  had  come  expressly  to  drink  the  waters, 
and  I  began  to  be  afraid  of  meeting  with  diffi- 
culties beyond  my  control.  It  was  true  I  had 
taken  the  precaution  to  write  to  a  well-known 
friend  who  had  gone  there  in  his  carriage,  and 
with  his  own  horses,  and  who  was  supposed  to 
have  great  influence  with  the  proprietor,  Mr. 
Caldwell.  I  had  therefore  a  friend  at  court, 
and  that  friend  had  written  to  me  that  Mr.  An- 
derson, the  prime  minister  of  the  proprietor, 
had  promised  to  provide  accommodations  for  us 
against  our  arrival.  But  unfortunately  I  had 
heard  a  great  deal  of  Mr.  Anderson  at  the  Warm 
Springs  ;  the  impartial  world  there  seemed  dis- 
posed to  agree  in  doing  him  justice,  and  a  lady 
from  Kentucky,  whom  he  had  not  been  too  at- 
tentive to,  told  me  that  "  if  Anderson  warn't 
the  biggest  liar  that  ever  was  to  bejong  to  Vir- 
ginny,  then  there  was  a  great  one  to  be  born 
yet."  The  stage-coach  in  which  we  were  was 
full  of  people,  agitated  by  the  same  hope?  and 
fears  as  ourselves,  all  anxious  to  get  the  first 
interview  with  this  Mr.  Anderson,  a  personage 
now  grown  into  the  highest  importance  with 
us  all ;  when,  unluckily,  as  we  were  approach- 
ing the  place,  another  stage-coach  whipped 
past  us  full  of  people,  which  threw  us  all  in  de- 
spair, and  we  suspended  for  the  moment  our 
secret  contrivances  to  anticipate  each  other,  to 
•unite  in  reproaches  against  our  driver  for  per- 
mitting the  other  coach  to  pass  us. 

The  moment  our  vehicle  stopped  I  jumped 
out,  and  immediately  found  a  group  of  people 
talking  to  a  person  who  was  answering  the  va- 
rious eager  inquiries  they  were  putting  to  him. 
This  was  a  short,  thick-set  fellow,  with  a  filthy 
black  hat  hanging  on  one  side  of  his  head,  at  an 
angle  of  about  45°,  his  garments  as  unpromis- 
ing as  his  beaver,  his  arms  a-kimbo,  and  his 
whole  appearance  vivified  with  a  fierce,  cool, 
and  brazen-faced  strut,  that  made  a  perfect 
character  of  him.  I  had  been  cherishing  some 
faint  hope  that  the  great  Mr.  Anderson,  the 
Metternich  of  this  wonderful  establishment, 
might  have  a  touch  of  the  gentleman  in  him, 
and  be  disposed  to  assist  me  in  my  need :  this 
animal,  thought' I,  cannot  be  Mr.  Anderson ;  but, 
considering  the  levee  about  this  matchless  in- 
dividual, my  mind  somewhat  misgave  me,  and 
I  doubtingly  inquired  of  him  where  I  could  see 
Mr.  Anderson  1  The  answer  was  not  long  in 
coming,  and  to  my  somewhat  dismay,  I  heard 
the  important  declaration,  "  I  reckon  I  am  Mr. 
Anderson."  I  then  mentioned  my  name  and 
the  reasons  I  had  for  supposing  that  an  apart- 
ment had  been  reserved  for  me  ;  upon  which, 
without  the  least  circumlocution,  he  said,  "  Look 
ye,  Mister,  I  han't  room  for  a  cat,  to  say  no- 
thing about  your  family."  If  ever  individuals 
were  in  '•  a  considerable  particular  fix,"  we  now 
might  claim  to  be  in  the  rare  situation  which 
would  deserve  so  felicitous  a  paraphrase,  for 
the  driver  of  the  stage-coach  having  thrown 
our  luggage  on  the  ground,  ordered  my  family 
to  get  out,  as  he  was  going  to  take  his  vehicle 
away :  here,  then,  we  were  without  friends  or 
lodgings,  or  sympathy  from  any  one.  Address- 
ing myself  to  this  Anderson  again,  I  told  him 
we  had  been  induced  to  come  on,  by  assurances 


that  he  had  engaged  to  procure  us  lodgings, 
and  that  he  must  do  it,  for  we  could  not  stay 
out  of  doors  all  night.  The  fellow  now  advised 
me  to  go  to  a  house  two  miles  distant  until  the 
morning,  when  he  said  he  would  do  his  very 
best  for  me,  admitting  that  much  interest  had 
been  used  to  procure  lodgings  for  us  in  the  es- 
tablishment, and  assuring  me  that  he  had  the 
best  dispositions  to  serve  me.  The  question 
was  now  how  to  get  to  this  house,  and  whilst 
I  was  endeavouring  to  arrange  this,  a  little  lame 
man,  with  a  very  Jewish  face — who  seemed  to 
belong  to  the  establishment,  and  who  hobbled 
about  with  a  stick — brought  an  unshaven  but 
civil  spoken  man  to  me,  who  said  his  name 
was  Servoy,  that  he  lived  only  half  a  mile  from 
the  Springs,  in  a  cottage  I  had  observed  as  we 
-drove  up,  and  that  he  would  accommodate  us 
with  a  room  to  ourselves  until  we  removed  to 
the  Springs.  I  immediately  closed  with  this 
offer.  Mr.  Servoy  undertook  to  procure  a  sort 
of  carriage  to  convey  us  to  his  place,  and  whilst 
these  matters  were  arranging  I  took  an  oppor- 
tunity of  looking  around  me  with  a  mind  some- 
what more  at  ease,  which  I  was  too  busy  to  do 
before,  even  if  I  had  not  been  prevented  by  a 
dense  crowd,  principally  composed  of  dirty, 
spitting,  smoking,  queer-looking  creatures,  that 
had  assembled  upon  our  arrival. 

The  establishment  of  the  White  Sulphur 
Springs  seemed  to  consist  of  a  pack  of  unprom- 
sing-looking  huts,  or  cabins,  as  they  are  called, 
surrounding  an  oblong  square,  with  a  foot  walk 
in  the  centre,  railed  off  from  a  grassy  plot  on 
each  side  of  it.  At  the  entrance  into  the  estab- 
lishment— which  has  very  much  the  air  .of  a 
permanent  Methodist  camp-meeting — you  have 
on  the  left  a  miserable-looking  sort  of  barrack, 
badly  constructed  of  wood,  with  a  dilapidated 
portico.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  frowsy  ap- 
pearance of  this  building,  which  contains  the 
grand  dining  saloon,  where  daily  between  three 
and  four  hundred  persons  assemble  to  a  kind  of 
scramble  for  breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper.  A 
few  of  the  cabins  had  a  comfortable-looking  ap- 
pearance, and  these  were  the  private  property 
of  genteel  families  residing  in  various  parts  of 
Virginia,  but  who  have  a  right  to  occupy  them 
only  in  person,  and  not  by  proxy.  This  oblong 
square  descends  rather  rapidly,  towards  the 
south-west  to  the  spring,  which  is  surrounded 
by  a  small  colonnade,  with  seats  around  it,  gen- 
erally filled  by  persons,  many  of  whom  are  in- 
differently dressed,  and  are  constantly  smoking 
and  spitting.  Others  are  quietly  waiting,  with 
emaciated  sallow  faces,  made  ghastly  with  fev- 
er ^nd  ague,  until  the  time  comes  to  drink 
another  glass  of  the  sulphuretted  water,  the 
gaseous  effluvium  of  which  extends  far  around. 
A  few  paces  from  this  is  another  reservoir  of  the 
water,  surrounded  with  a  curb-stone,  where  the 
negro  servants  assemble  and  drink  in  imitation 
of  their  masters,  and  out  of  which  water  is  dip- 
ped for  the  use  of  the  horses  in  the  contiguous 
stables.  From  these  springs  other  rows  of  cab- 
ins are  visible,  of  an  inferior  kind,  but  all  having 
a  very  unprepossessing  -look.  One  of  these 
rows  is  called  Fly  Row,  from  the  myriads  of  flies 
which  constantly  infest  it.  Other  rows  have 
still  more  objectionable  names.  Some  of  them 
have  received  names  from  the  visitors,  such  as 
Probation  Row,  an  inferior  locality,  where  fam- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


23 


ilies  are  placed  until  they  can  be  better  provided  j  brought  to  table  in  such  a  state  that  it  was  im- 
for.  possible  to  divine  whether  it  had  been  roasted 

We  found  Mr.  Servoy's  house  exceedingly  in-    or  boiled,  or  what  had  been  done  to  it ;  it  was, 


commodious,  and  their  manner  of  living  rude 
a*nd  irregular.  This  man,  who  was  really  an 
obliging  person,  was  a  country  blacksmith,  and 
-having  perceived  during  the  past  season  that 
the  accommodations  at  the  springs  were  insuf- 
ficient, and  having  discovered  a  moist  puddle  on 
his  own  premises,  which  encouraged  him  to  be- 
lieve it  might  become  a  spring,  had  made  an 
addition  to  his  house,  and  had  abandoned  the 
anvil  for  the  vocation  of  entertaining  company, 
lor  which  he  was  as  much  fitted  as  we  were  for 
making  horse-shoes.  The  good  people  did  their 
very  best  to  entertain  us  ;  but  the  meat  and  the 
cooking  were  alike  detestable ;  the  bread  and 
the  butter  were  both  bad  ;  and  only  the  milk 
tolerable,  of  which,  fortunately  there  was  an 
abundance.  There  was  a  fine  spring  of  cold 
•water,  too,  on  the  premises,  which  was  an  in- 
valuable luxury. 

Nature,  however,  always  attractive  in  this  in- 
teresting country,  compensated  as  far  as  she 
could  for  all  these  inconveniences.  The  house 
was  situated  upon  a  charming  knoll  on  the  west 
side  of  Howard's  Creek — a  tributary  oi  the  great 
Kanhaway  River  that  discharges  into  the  Ohio 
•which  meandered  at  its  foot.  In  front  there 
•was  an  enchanting  view  of  the  Alleghany  moun- 
tains, the  spurs  of  which,  clothed  with  noble 
•woods,  sometimes  projected  into  the  valley,  and 
sometimes  ran  parallel  with  the  flanks  of  the 
mountains,  whose  beautiful  and  picturesque  ser- 
raled  summits,  sometimes  undulating  in  round- 
ed .hummocks,  like  the  Resegone  of  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Lake  of  Como,  in  the  Milanese,  and 
at  others  presenting  acute  ridges  and  peaks, 
bore  every  where  a  rich  velvety  appearance, 
•from  the  depth  and  luxuriance  of  their  forests. 
"With  these  sweet  views  around  us,  with  the 
agreeable  excursions  we  made,  with  bread  and 
milk  and  good  water,  and  occasional  visits  to  the 
White  Sulphur  Springs,  to  remind  Mr.  Anderson 
of  his  engagement  with  me,  we  got  over  five 
'days  at  our  host's  the  blacksmith.  He,  on  the 
•  other  hand,  took  in  every  body  who  would  come; 
and  many  were  the  unfortunates  who,  like  our- 
selves had  reached  the  end  of  their  journey  with- 
out finding  a  home  there.  Unfortunately,  whilst 
iiis  house  was  full— having  crammed  sixteen 
people  into  a  space  not  sufficient  for  half  that 
number — the  "help"  he  had  engaged  to  assist 
his  wife  and  children  in  cooking  and  waiting 
upon  the  guests  went  away,  because  "  sich  a 
power  of  folks  it  was  onpossible  to  sarve  ;"  and 
not  being  able  to  procure  another  in  the  imme- 
diate neighbourhood,  he  was  obliged  to  go  to 
Lewisburg,  a  small  town  about  nine  miles  off, 
to  get  one.  During  his  absence,  Mrs  Black- 
smith having  to  make  all  the  beds,  cook  all  the 
^victuals,  and  wait  upon  every  body  in  the  bar- 
gain, came  to  the  same  conclusion  that  her 
"help"  had  done;  and  as  various  significant 
flints  were  thrown  out  by  some  of  the  company 
that  it  was  likely  she  understood  blowing  the 
bellows  better  than  making  people  comfortable, 
she  very  sensibly  thought  that  the  best  way  of 
diminishing  the  quantum  of  dissatisfaction  was 
to  get  rid  of  some  of  her  guests.  During  her 
husband's  absence,  the  dinner  the  first  day  con- 
.  sisted  of  a  hunch  of  something  she  called  beef. 


moreover,  so  tough  and  stringy,  that  after  vari- 
ous unhappy  attempts,  it  was  found  out  of  the 
question  to  hope  to  masticate  it ;  whereupon  all 
the  guests  in  utter  dismay  grounded  their  arms, 
"  gave  it  up,"  and  rose  from  the  table.  Never 
was  the  chief  of  a  state  more  puzzled  with  an 
insurrection  than  she  was  when  her  child,  who 
was  waiting  on  the  table,  went  and  told  her 
mammy  that  the  company  "  wouldn't  touch  the 
beef  no  how."  This  being  an  overt  act  that 
directly  involved  the  authority  of  the  govern- 
ment, she  met  it  in  the  true  Cyclopian  spirit. 
Flying  into  the  room,  without  a  moment's  delay, 
she  gave  notice,  in  the  most  intelligible  man- 
ner, "  I  aint  a-going  to  work  myself  to  death  to 
please  nobody.  I  reckon,  if  you  are  so  nice,  you 
know  where  to  get  better ;  so  go  as  soon  as  you 
like,  for  you  shan't  stay  here  no  longer." 

This  proclamation  produced  the  effect  that  all 
energetic  measures  timely  adopted  by  govern- 
ments usually  do,  and  was  felt  to  be  particularly 
cutting  in  that  part  where  we  were  told  to  p,o 
as  soon  as  we  liked,  as  if  we,  poor  devils  !  could 
like  to  go  when  there  was  no  place  for  us  to  go 
to.  At  length  the  blacksmith  returned,  and 
without  any  "  help,"  and  in  an  ill  humour,  which 
was  an  unusual  occurrence.  We  had  a  speci- 
men of  it  in  the  evening.  One  of  the  company, 
who  had  gone  without  dinner,  observed  to  him 
that  it  was  past  eight  o'clock ;  that  he  had  had 
no  dinner ;  and  that  he  wanted  his  tea,  which 
ought  to  have  been  ready  at  six.  Upon  which 
Mr.  Servoy  observed  that  "  the  folks  was  doing 
the  best  they  could  for  the  boarders ;  and  if  the 
boarders  warn't  satisfied  with  that,  why  there 
was  no  sich  thing  as  satisfying  the  boarders,  for 
folks  couldn't  do  nothing  more  than  their  best — 
that  every  body  knowed ;  and  if  any  of  the 
boarders  warn't  satisfied  with  his  folks,  why  he 
didn't  want  their  company."  This  speech, 
which  was  instantly  produced  in  place  of  tea, 
showed  us  that  we  ought  not  to  be  very  partic- 
ular as  to  what  we  got  as  long  as  we  stayed  here, 
and  effectually  put  us  upon  our  good  behaviour. 

In  the  mean  time  I  was  forming  a  very  close 
acquaintance  with  the  premier,  Mr.  Anderson. 
Two  or  three  days  I  visted  the  springs,  to  see  if 
it  was  possible  to  soften  his  obdurate  heart,  and 
get  admission  into  the  paradise  of  filth  and  con- 
fusion over  which  he  presided  :  each  time  he 
made  me  the  most  grave  promises  to  take  me 
in  the  next  morning,  which,  when  it  came,  he 
as  regularly  broke,  alleging  all  sorts  of  excuses, 
and  bringing  all  sorts  of  defensive  armour  out 
of  his  inexhaustible  stock  of  subterfuges  and 
lies,  to  meet  the  rather  critical  cross-examina- 
tions I  found  it  necessary  to  submit  his  reasons 
to.  At  length  it  became  too  bad  ;  he  had  taken 
others  in  who  came  subsequently  to  us,  and 
could  no  longer  plead  that  they  were  on  the  list 
before  us.  My  friends  now  complained  to  Mr. 
Caldwell,  the  proprietor,  who  promised  to  inter- 
cede in  our  favour ;  and  upon  this  Anderson  en- 
gaged positively  to  receive  us  the  next  day  at 
twelve  o'clock,  but  when  that  hour  arrived  he 
again  broke  his  word. 

Being  now  utterly  tired  out  with  his  prevari- 
cations, lies,  and  subterfuges,  I  walked  over 
with  my  son  and  told  him,  that  as  he  had  ad- 


21 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


milled  lhal  I  had  borne  with  his  conduct  wilh 
good  temper  and  moderation,  my  anger  was 
likely  lo  be  proporlionably  violenl  ;  lhal  I  could 
no  longer  stay  al  Ihe  blacksmith's,  and  that  if 
I  was  not  taken  in  forthwilh,  I  should  leave  the 
Whit".  Sulphur  altogether  ;  but  I  desired  him  to 
understand  that  it  was  my  fixed  purpose  to  leave 
such  a  memorandum1  upon  his  shoulders  as 
would  be  talked  of  by  all  who  visited  the  moun- 
tains for  generations  to  come.  Upon  this  Mr. 
Anderson  scratched  his  head,  and  said,  "I'll 
tell  you  what,  Mr.  F.,  I  can  do  for  you  ;  I  can 
give  you  No.  29  now  directly,  if  you  choose 
to  go  into  it,  but  I  can't  give  you  a  whole 
cabin  for  two  or  three  days  to  come."  Five 
minutes  before  this  he  had  sworn  he  had  not 
a  hole  to  put  a  cat  in.  We  now  moved  to 
No.  29,  which  was  a  single  room,  with  two  beds, 
in  a  row  of  inferior  cabins  called  Alabama  Row ; 
my  son  having  procured  a  dingy-looking  hole 
to  pass  the  night  in,  at  the  public  tavern  where 
the  post-office  was  kept.  Here,  in  the  adjoin- 
ing rooms,  we  found  numerous  acquaintances 
who  had  been  in  quarantine  like  ourselves.  The 
room  was  an  oblong  about  12  feet  long,  and 
very  narrow,  consequently  very  inconvenient. 
This  row  was  built  against  the  side  of  a  hill ; 
and  the  room,  which  extended  the  whole  width 
of  the  row,  had  two  doors.  The  western  one 
opened  upon  the  hill,  and  you  could  step  out 
upon  it  immediately  ;  but  the  eastern  and  prin- 
cipal entrance  was  by  a  steep  flight  of  broken 
and  dangerous  wooden  steps.  Furniture  there 
was  none  inside,  except  two  low  bedsteads 
coarsely  put  together  with  rough  planks  ;  and 
the  narrow  wooden  frame  on  which  I  was  to 
sleep  was  so  broken-backed  that  it  tilted  up  in 
the  middle.  Finding  it  utterly  impossible  to 
sleep  there,  I  had  to  get  up  again  after  I  had 
lain  down,  and  make  a  tolerably  even  surface 
by  filling  up  the  inequalities  with  articles  from 
my  own  wardrobe.  The  mattress  was  full  of 
knots,  and  what  was  in  the  thing  that  was  in- 
tended to  be  my  pillow  I  never  ascertained  ;  but 
a  gentleman  informed  me  that  he  and  his  wife 
having,  after  the  usual  vexatious  delays,  got  into 
some  room  resembling  ours,  as  soon  as  they 
laid  down  for  the  night,  found  their  pillow  not 
only  very  disagreeable  from  a  sickening  odour 
that  came  from  it,  hut  gifted  with  some  curious 
hard  knobs  in  it  that  were  moveable.  As  it 
was  out  of  the  question  to  sleep  upon  it,  he  threw 
it  on  one  side,  and  had  the  curiosity  to  examine 
it  in  the  morning,  when  he  discovered  that  they 
had  not  only  bountifully  put  a  handful  or  two  of 
dirty  live  feathers  into  it,  but  the  necks,  with 
the  heads  to  them,  of  two  chickens  and  a  duck. 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  of  the  truth  of  this, 
for  the  slaves  who  attend  to  such  matters  have 
entirely  their  own  way,  and  there  is  no  one  to 
examine  their  conduct. 

The  next  morning  I  made  loud  complaints, 
and  we  were  moved  into  No.  31,  where  the  beds 
were  much  better,  and  we  certainly  gained  by 
the  exchange.  This  No.  31  was  south  of  our 
first  room,  and  more  down  hill,  consequently 
the  wooden  steps  at  the  entrance  were  much 
steeper  and  higher.  They  were  ten  in  number, 
sharp,  jagged,  wooden  things,  a  fall  from  which 
would  in  most  cases  produce  a  broken  limb,  as 
they  were  at  an  inclination  of  about  55°.  It 
was  not  long  before  an  instance  was  afforded 


of  the  danger  attending  such  contrivances.  A 
respectable  old  lady,  stout,  and  slow  in  her 
movements,  who  inhabited  a  cabin  below  ours, 
hearing  the  tea-bell  ring,  and  hurrying  to  oboy 
the  summons,  thought  srie  could  get  quicker 
down  by  going  out  at  the  eastern  than,  at  the 
western  door ;  and  the  poor  dear  lady  was  not 
mistaken  in  her  conjecture,  for  having  reached 
the  steps,  she  prudently  thought  she  would  take 
hold  of  the  knob  of  the  door  and  see  if  it  was 
well  shut ;  but,  unluckily,  taking  hold  of  the 
key  instead  of  the  knob,  and  giving  it  a  jerk,  it 
came  out,  and  she  made  a  regular  somerset  be- 
fore she  got  to  the  bottom,  happily  without  break- 
ing any  limb.  This  and  other  inconveniences 
induced  me  to  apply  again  to  Mr.  Anderson,  who 
had  taken  rather  a  complaisant  turn  ;  he  ac- 
cordingly moved  us  to  Compulsion  Row,  a  line 
of  cottages  made  with  frames  instead  of  squared 
logs,  the  roofs  of  which  were  not  quite  finished. 
Their  exterior  looked  tolerably  well,  and  at  any 
rate  they  were  new  and  would  be  sweet ;  be- 
sides, they  had  a  small  private  portico  bafore 
them  which  afforded  some  shade.  The  sound 
of  the  carpenters'  hammers  and  saws  presented 
an  objection  to  our  emigrating  to  this  colony  ; 
but  we  saw  advantages  in  the  change  which  de- 
termined us  to  move,  especially  as  the  cottage 
offered  to  us  actually  contained  two  rooms,  the 
precious  privileges  of  which  were  beyond  all 
estimation.  Taking,  therefore,  an  affecting 
leave  of  our  friends  in  Alabama  Row,  we  gath- 
ered our  household  gods  and  goods  together, 
and  made  a  grand  movement  across  the  whoje 
establishment  of  the  White  Sulphur.  In  thrle 
or  four  trips  with  my  papers,  fossils,  &c.,  and 
the  slaVes  carrying  our  trunks,  in  the  course  of 
an  hour  we  were  established  in  No.  3,  Compul- 
sion Row. 

It  was  a  very  pretty,  lively  young  lady  who 
gave  this  name  to  the  place.  Mr.  Anderson  had 
put  some  families  into  private  cabins,  the  pro- 
prietors of  which  suddenly  appeared  to  claim 
Lheir  rights,  and  this  brought  him,  as  he  feeling- 
ly said,  "  to  a  h'll  of  a  nonplush."  The  weath- 
er was  setting  in  very  bad,  and  the  proprietors 
not  only  insisted  upon  coming  in,  but  had  made 
their  own  servants  carry  their  luggage  into  the 
cabins,  so  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  no 
place  to  put  the  actual  possessors  in  but  the 
Land  of  Promise.  The  family  that  had  to  sur- 
render was  in  great  distress,  when  suddenly 
Mr.  Anderson's  countenance  beamed  with  that 
sort  of  satisfaction  which  sometimes  illumines 
the  features  of  genius,  and  which  could  hardly  be 
surpassed  by  that  of  Newton  when  the  discove- 
ry of  gravitation  relieved  him  from  so  many 
difficulties.  "I  have  it,"  exclaimed  he:  '-you 
shall  go  to  the  new  buildings  ;  they  are  not  quite 
finished,  but  you  will  be  comfortable.  Boys, 
take  the  luggage  over  directly."  The  parties 
followed  their  trunks,  came  to  the  buildings, 
which  were  ceiled  tightly  in,  with  clap  boards, 
the  doors  were  hung,  and  things  looked  quite 
nice  outside.  But  when  they  got  in,  they  found 
that  half  of  the  roof  not  seen  from  the  road 
without  any  covering  whatever,  except  the  raft 
rs  that  were  waiting  for  the  shingles  or  wood- 
en tiles  ;  the  floors  also  were  full  of  chips  and 
shavings,  and  the  hearths  were  not  laid.  Very 
soon  after  they  got  into  the  house  and  its  inter- 
esting secrets,  it  began  to  rain  hard  ;  and  them 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


25 


being  only  half  a  roof,  they  might  as  well  al- 
most have  been  out  of  doors.  Then  came  loud 
complaints  and  remonstrances  to  the  grand  func- 
tionary, who  declared  that  this  was  quite  (treas- 
onable ;  that  he  could  not  stop  it  raining  ;  that 
nobody  but  the  carpenter  could  do  that ;  and  he 
promised  that  he  should  do  that  to-morrow.  Un- 
der these  circumstances  the  family,  not  liking 
to  take  up  their  abode  on  the  high  road,  made 
the  best  they  could  of  it,  and  stayed  in  the  half 
cottage  by  compulsion.  This  is  one  of  the  in- 
stances of  the  confusion  produced  by  a  fraudu- 
lent system  of  pretending  to  accommodate  ev- 
ery body,  when  there  is  only  room  for  a  few. 


CHAPTER  V. 

State  of  Society  at  Compulsion  Row — Fine  flavour  of  the 
Oysters  at  New  Orleans. — Private  Cabins  at  the  Springs 
—A  Cyclopean  Kitchen— Merciful  Plan  of  Killing  Bul- 
locks with  the  Rifle — Extraordinary  performances  at 
Dinner— Mr.  Wright's  Shanty  in  the  Woods— Generals 
who  have  never  been  Soldiers — The  Ferryman  and  the 
Traveller  without  a  title. 

IF  I  had  heard  this  story  before  we  moved 
into  Compulsion  Row,  we  should  certainly  have 
never  been  inhabitants  of  it.  Our  portico  was 
common  to  two  cottages  united  by  one  roof. 
Each  cottage  had  two  rooms  of  a  sufficient  size, 
and  as  far  as  space  went  we  were  satisfied  ;  the 
roof  also  was  tight,  but  there  was  no  ceiling  to 
either  of  the  rooms,  and  we  looked  up  upon  the 
rafters.  On  examining  our  premises  a  little 
more  particularly,  we  were  sorry  to  perceive 
that  the  partition-wall,  which  was  common  to 
us  and  the  next  cottage,  was  only  carried  up 
part  of  the  way  to  the  roof;  all  above  the  line 
where  a  ceiling  was  intended  to  be  placed  to  di- 
vide the  lower  from  the  upper  room,  was  entirely 
open  space,  except  where  the  rough  brick  chim- 
ney reared  itself  up  in  a  rather  uncomely  man- 
ner, so  that  if  a  quarrel  had  existed  betwixt  us 
and  our  neighbours,  we  could  have  carried  on 
the  war  by  throwing  missiles  at  each  other, 
with  almost  as  much  facility  as  if  there  had 
been  no  wall  at  all.  The  inconvenience  arising 
from  this  "  bad  state  of  the  fences"  soon  mani- 
fested itself.  We  heard  the  door  of  the  adjoin- 
ing cabin  open,  followed  by  the  sound  of  heavy 
footsteps  of  several  coarse  men,  as  we  soon  dis- 
covered, by  the  loud,  drawling,  unceasing  vulgar 
conversation  they  got  into.  We  had,  however, 
no  blaspheming,  and  this  I  was  grateful  to  them 
for ;  but  in  its  place  we  had  such  a  torrent  of 
ungrammatical  holdings  forth  about  temperance 
societies,  Sunday  schools,  tracts,  and  tbe  utter 
wickedness  and  lost  state  of  everybody  but  them- 
selves, that  at  times  many  persons  would,  I 
dare  say,  have  felt  it  quite  a  relief  if  they  had 
taken  to  cursing  and  swearing.  When  we  re- 
turned to  our  cottage  for  the  night,  these  self- 
righteous  persons  seemed  to  be  still  labouring  to 
express  their  spite  against  their  fellow-creatures. 
More  stupid,  disgusting  stuff  I  never  listened  to, 
than  that  which  came  from  these  conceited, 
self-sanctified,  canting  jackasses,  nor  in  my 
opinion  can  anything  tend  more  to  suppress  true 
religious  feeling  than  such  contemptible  trash  as 
they  uttered.  They  were  all  democrats,  too,  to 
a  man,  which  made  them  quite  perfect.  In  the 
morning  we  were  awoke  by  their  hawking  and 
D 


spitting,  and  beginning  to  talk  as  insipidly  and 
disgustingly  as  ever. 

During  the  next  day,  these  farthing  candles 
to  lighten  the  Gentiles  were  exchanged  for  an- 
other set  of  a  different  kind,  equally  low  and 
vulgar,  but  without  their  canting.  This  new 
company,  four  in  number,  with  two  very  small 
beds  to  sleep  in,  were  constantly  engaged  in  dis- 
putes about  bacon — not  Bacon,  the  great  philos- 
opher of  England,  but  salt  bacon  of  Virginia. 
One  of  them  maintained  that  in  "the  hull  woorld 
there  was  no  sich  bacon  as  Virginia  bacon.'r 
Another,  who  was  a  Kentuckian,  felt  himself 
hurt  by  this  observation,  and  put  in  an  immedi- 
ate rejoinder,  saying,  "I  allow  the  Virginians 
do  flog  all  mankind  at  praising  themselves,  and 
their  bacon  might  be  pretty  good,  but  it  war'nt 
to  be  compared,  no,  not  for  a  beginning  of  a 
thing,  to  the  bacon  of  the  western  country,, 
where  the  land  was  an  almighty  sight  finer,  pro- 
duced better  corn,  and,  of  course,  made  better 
hogs."  The  Virginian  now  became  nettled,  and 
swore  they  had  "  more  reel  luxuries  in  old  Vir- 
ginia than  they  had  in  the  hull  woorld,"  and  ask- 
ed the  Kentuckian  if  they  had  "  oysters  in  Ken- 
tucky, and  clams,  and  sich-like  ;"  finishing  with 
a  declaration  that  the  finest  land  in  the  "hull 
woorld"  was  in  Southampton  County.  These 
oysters  silenced  the  Kentuckian,  who,  living  far 
in  the  interior,  had  never  seen  any ;  but  a  resi- 
dent of  the  state  of  "  Massasippi,"  who  could 
not  stand  this  boast  of  fine  land,  put  it  to  the 
Virginian  whether  they  could  grow  sugar  in 
Southampton  County,  and  added  that  he  had 
"  always  heer'n  that  the  hawysters  of  New  Or- 
le^ns  had  sich  a  onaccountable  fine  flavour,  that 
they  would  knock  the  hawysters  of  Old  Virginny 
into  their  ninety-ninth  year  any  day."  "  I 
reckon  they  get  that  from  the  yellow  fever,"  re- 
joined the  Virginian.  This  is  pretty  much  at 
specimen  of  the  conversation  of  these  noisy  fel- 
lows, who  having  come  together  in  the  stage 
coach,  Anderson,  to  our  great  discomfort,  had 
crammed  into  this  room.  I  had  opportunities 
afterwards  of  seeing  these  persons  in  the  porti- 
co, and  their  external  appearance  corresponded 
to  their  conversation  ;  they  were  ill-dressed, 
vulgar-looking  fellows,  drawn  from  the  class  of 
slave-dealers  and  land  speculators. 

Language  cannot  do  justice  to  the  scenes  we 
witnessed,  and  through  which  we  had  to  pass  at 
the  White  Sulphur  Springs.  It  must  appear  in- 
credible to  those  who  have  heard  so  much  of  the 
celebrity  of  this  watering-place,  but  who  have 
never  been  here,  to  be  told  that  this,  the  most 
filthy,  disorderly  place  in  the  United  States,  with 
less  method  and  cleanliness  about  it  than  be- 
longs to  the  common  jails  of  the  country,  and 
where  it  is  quite  impossible  to  be  comfortable, 
should  from  year  to  year  be  flocked  to  by  great 
numbers  of  polite  and  well-bred  people  who  have 
comfortable  homes  of  their  own,  and  who  con- 
tinue to  remain  amidst  all  this  discomfort,  which, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  they  know  is  un- 
changeable. This  requires  some  explanation. 

The  waters  of  this  region  have  been  frequent- 
ed by  the  Virginians  during  a  long  period,  for 
relief  from  the  liver  complaints  and  debilitated 
constitutions  occasioned  by  the  annual  unhealth- 
iness  of  all  those  low  parts  of  Virginia  which 
extend  as  far  as  the  tide-water  penetrates  up 
the  Atlantic  rivers.  The  bilious  and  intermit- 


26 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


tent  fevers  general  to  that  flat  country,  compel 
almost  all  the  proprietors  who  can  afford  to 
leave  their  planiations,  to  fly  to  the  salubrious 
air  of  the  mountains,  where  they  usually  remain 
from  July  until  the  first  frosts  set  in  in  Octoher. 
When  these  waters  first  became  known,  and  be- 
fore roads  were  made,  everybody  came  on 
horseback,  rude  huts  were  constructed  for  their 
personal  accommodation  by  those  who  came, 
and  the  game  with  which  the  country  abounded, 
venison,  partridges,  and  bear's-meat,  supplied 
their  tables.  In  time  roads  were  opened,  and 
families  were  enabled  to  come  with  greater 
comfort,  and  to  bring  articles  of  furniture  and  a 
few  of  the  luxuries  of  life  with  them  :  this  grad- 
ually led  to  settlements,  and  to  a  market  at  the 
springs  for  the  productions  of  the  settlers.  The 
•waters  soon  acquired  a  deserved  celebrity,  and 
were  annually  resorted  to  by  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  persons  of  Virginia.  At  length 
this  part  of  the  district  became  private  property, 
and  some  of  the  visitors,  to  ensure  themselves 
the  greatest  possible  degree  of  personal  comfort, 
entered  into  an  agreement  with  the  proprietor 
that  he  should  build  for  them  small  wooden  cab- 
ins, to  contain  two  or  three  rooms.  The  ex- 
pense of  erecting  each  of  these  cabins,  not  ex- 
ceeding 200  dollars,  was  to  be  defrayed  by  the 
person  for  whom  it  was  built,  the  privilege  being 
reserved  to  him  and  his  family  of  occupying  it 
whenever  he  or  they  came  in  preference  to  any 
body  else,  he  being  bound  to  leave  the  key  with 
the  proprietor  when  he  went  away,  who  had  then 
-the  right  to  put  other  persons  into  it.  These 
privileged  visitors  pay  the  same  weekly  charge 
per  head  for  their  board  that  all  others  do,  and 
some  of  them  bring  their  cooks  and  make  an  ar- 
rangement for  a  private  table,  so  that  they,  not 
being  obliged  to  mingle  with  the  heterogeneous 
mass,  have  a  degree  of  enjoyment  that  others 
cannot  participate  in.  At  present,  the  increased 
population  and  wealth  of  Virginia  cause  great 
numbers  to  resort  to  these  celebrated  waters ; 
but  it  so  happens  that  the  proprietor,  Mr.  Cald- 
well,  is  a  man  of  a  simple  indolent,  and  inactive 
character,  who  pays  no  attention  to  his  own  af- 
fairs ;  the  consequence  is,  that  he  is  unceasingly 
plundered  by  those  who  do  look  after  them. 

It  would  be  impossible  for  such  a  state  of 
things  to  exist  if  the  establishment  were  under 
the  management  of  a  person  gifted  with  good 
sense  and  activity.  The  place  might  be  made  a 
mine  of  wealth  to  such  a  man.  Everything  con- 
curs to  make  the  speculation  both  profitable  and 
permanent.  The  wide  celebrity  of  the  curative 
properties  of  the  water,  the  beauty  and  salubrity 
of  the  country,  the  prevalence  of  the  opinion  that 
it  is  necessary  to  drink  the  waters  at  least,  a 
fortnight,  the  residence  during  the  whole  of  the 
summer  months  of  so  many  genteel  families,  the 
affluence  of  intelligent  individuals  from  every 
part  of  the  Union  abounding  with  pleasant  and 
instructive  information,  are  a  sufficient  guaran- 
tee for  the  certainty  of  the  returns  that  would 
reward  the  exertions  of  the  right  sort  of  man. 
Indeed,  if  cleanliness  and  order  only  prevailed, 
it  would  he  the  most  delightful  watering-place  I 
have  visited  in  the  United  States.  To  a  lover 
of  nature  the  country  abounds  in  attractions,  and 
when  the  day's  excursions  are  over,  what  with 
social  visits  to  families  backwards  and  forwards, 
agreeable  evening  walks  when  the  sun  has  de- 


clined, the  news  by  a  regular  daily  mail,  the 
general  and  particular  intercourse  maintained 
amongst  those  who  are  acquainted  with  each 
other,  and  the  re-union  at  night  of  the  company 
in  the  ball-room,  this  establishment,  situated  in 
a  romantic  and  plentiful  country,  might  be  con- 
verted into  a  refined  rural  residence,  during  the 
summer,  for  a  thousand  persons ;  whilst  the 
poor  invalids  who  hie  to  this  Bethesda,  uniting 
the  use  of  the  waters  with  temperate  exercise, 
a  fine  mountain  air,  and  the  pleasures  of  society, 
would  bless  the  place  to  the  latest  day  of  their 
existence.  If  the  proprietor  were  capable  of 
accomplishing  so  much  good,  he  would  not  only 
double  his  profits,  which  are  said  to  exceed 
thirty  thousand  dollars  per  annum,  but  receive 
the  praises  of  every  one  ;  but  abandoning  the 
concern  to  Anderson  and  a  pack  of  worthless 
free  black  servants,  one-half  of  everything  is 
wasted,  and  he  is  thus  driven  to  contract  for  the 
cheapest  things  he  can  procure,  and  to  give  his 
guests  the  worst  things  that  can  be  procured  in 
the  country.  Milk,  which  is  so  plentiful  at  the 
Warm  Springs,  is  not  to  be  had  here.  The 
kitchen,  which  opens  into  the  dining-hall,  is  a 
dark  cavernous-looking  place,  resembling  a  sub- 
terranean furnace,  with  dirt  and  offal  of  every 
sort  thrown  upon  the  floor,  whilst  human  beings 
are  obscurely  seen,  some  of  them  standing  at  the 
great  fires  and  others  running  about  as  if  they 
were  so  many  Cyclops  ;  all  of  them  are  negroes, 
a  circumstance  of  great  importance  to  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty  private  black  servants  in  at- 
tendance here,  who  are  thus  enabled  to  get  the 
choicest  morsels  to  themselves,  an  advantage 
they  avail  themselves  of  to  its  fullest  extent. 
Hence  the  prodigious  waste,  for  they  and  the 
dingy  Dinahs  consume  more  meat,  bread,  sugar, 
and  butter,  than  their  masters  three  times  over, 
and  only  pay  half-price  ;  so  that  the  practice  of 
turning  white  visitors  away  who  have  no  ser- 
vants, and  taking  in  those  who  have  black  ones, 
is  a  losing  one  to  the  proprietor,  though  he  does 
not  see  it.  A  beeve  and  eight  sheep  are  killed 
every  day  after  dinner,  and  either  wasted  or 
consumed  within  the  twenty-four  hours.  Con- 
tracts for  these  are  made  with  cattle-drovers, 
who  drive  twenty  or  fifty,  as  the  case  may  be  ; 
the  usual  price  paid  being  three  cents,  or  about 
three  halfpence  a  pound  for  the  meat  when 
dressed,  the  hide  and  tallow  being  thrown  in. 
When  the  lot  is  brought  by  the  drover  an  aver- 
age animal  is  selected,  killed,  dressed,  and 
weighed,  and  the  whole  lot  paid  for,  per  head, 
at  the  same  rate.  The  rest  are  put  into  a  field 
of  thirty  acres,  closely  fed,  and  one  of  them  is 
killed  every  day.  When  the  servants  have 
dined,  the  butcher,  with  his  attendants,  goes  to 
the  field,  selects  an  animal,  has  it  shot  with  a 
rifle,  and  brings  away  the  carcase  in  his  waggon. 
These  black  fellows,  who  have  very  little  feel- 
ing for  dumb  animals,  or  for  anything  but  them- 
selves, one  day  put  several  balls  into  a  poor  bul- 
lock, which  being  furious,  tore  down  the  fences, 
and  took  to  the  woods:  hearing  of  this,  my 
son,  who  is  an  admirable  marksman,  went  to 
the  place,  took  the  rifle  from  the  negro,  and  the 
animal  being  overtaken,  put  a  ball  into  its  head 
at  a  distance  of  upwards  of  100  yards,  which 
cut  the  spinal  marrow,  and  killed  it  instanter. 

The  next  day  the  people  apprehending  some 
similar  difficulty  from  the  cattle  being  very  wild 


TRAVELS   IN   AMERICA. 


27 


in  consequence  of  having  been  chased  the  day 
before,  came  to  rny  son  and  asked  him  to  offici- 
ate again.  Being  curious  to  see  the  operation, 
I  accompanied  him  to  the  field,  where  we  found 
some  difficulty  in  getting  sufficiently  near  to 
them  ;  at  length  they  drew  up  into  a  group,  and 
the  butcher  having  designated  a  black  one  with 
a  small  white  spot  on  its  forehead,  which  was 
in  the  midst  of  them,  my  son  waited  till  it  pre- 
sented its  head  towards  him,  when  he  fired  at 
about  150  yards,  and  the  animal  immediately 
dropped  on  its  knees,  and  rolled  over.  It  was 
dead  before  the  butcher  could  run  up  to  let  the 
blood  out.  This  is  certainly  a  merciful  way  of 
killing  horned  cattle  when  the  shot  is  a  sure  one. 
The  ball  upon  this  occasion  went  in  about  two 
inches  from  the  top  of  the  forehead,  exactly  in 
the  centre,  and  from  thence  passed  into  and  cut 
the  spine.  I  never  saw  a  neater  shot  fired. 
The  animal  was  now  skinned,  dressed  in  a  rude 
manner,  and  carried  to  the  house,  where  part  of 
it  was  cooked  for  supper  the  same  evening. 

People  seem  always  to  be  eating  meat  here, 
and  to  have  no  choice  whether  it  is  tough  or 
tender,  fat  or  lean— at  least  yon  hear  nothing 
which  induces  you  to  suppose  so ;  and,  indeed, 
those  who  have  a  gross  taste  and  voracious 
stomachs  must  fare  well  here,  for  there  is  any 
quantity  of  nasty  looking  dishes  of  animal  food 
placed  three  times  a  day  before  them. 

But  in  this  establishment,  that  might  be  as 
unrivalled  in  its  comforts  as  it  is  in  its  natural 
advantages  and  beauty,  everything  is  alike,  a 
scene  of  dirt  and  confusion  ;  and  a  charming 
rural  retreat  from  the  heats  of  the  summer  is 
thus  disgraced  with  all  the  filth  and  nastiness 
of  a  badly  conducted  hospital.  Into  the  details 
of  his  affairs  the  proprietor  never  enters.  His 
orders  are  to  take  everybody  in,  and  never  were 
orders  more  faithfully  executed.  The  manner 
in  which  this  over-peopled  and  under-fed  place 
is  daily  provided  for,  is  certainly  unique.  At 
six  in  the  morning  the  first  bell  rings,  and  a  little 
before  seven  the  second  bell  announces  that 
breakfast  is  on  the  table  in  the  dining-hall.  Now 
the  doors  of  the  cabins  are  thrown  open,  and  the 
polite  and  the  vulgar  are  seen  converging  from 
every  quarter  to  a  scene  of  indescribable  confu- 
sion and  filth.  On  the  dirty  portico,  in  front  of 
the  hall,  all  assemble  in  a  dense  crowd  as  if 
some  extraordinary  exhibition  was  to  be  pre- 
sented, and  there  are  three  doors  of  entrance. 
Suddenly  these  doors  are  opened  from  within, 
and  then  it  is  important  for  every  gentleman  to 
take  care  of  the  lady  under  his  charge.  Having 
forced  yonr  way  inside  after  a  desperate  squeeze, 
the  next  thing  is  to  find  your  seat.  Where 
three  hundred  have  to  sit  in  a  place  which 
scarce  affords  room  for  two  hundred,  it  is  better 
to  be  first  than  last.  A  single  man  stands  no 
chance  for  a  place  if  he  is  not  on  the  alert ;  yet 
I  must  do  the  visitors  the  justice  to  say,  that 
although  the  motto  is  of  necessity,  sauve  qui 
peut,  perd,  qui  vcut,  yet  the  claims  of  a  lady 
seemed  to  be  always  promptly  admitted.  The 
only  thing  like  system  which  is  in  favour 
of  the  visitors,  is  the  having  your  name  placed 
on  your  plate,  as  at  the  Warm  Springs — a  cus- 
tom absolutely  necessary  to  avoid  a  general 
scramble  for  seats.  We  always  found  our 
names  on  our  plates,  which  were  placed  in 
front  of  a  dirty  bench  without  a  back  to  it. 


I  But  who  can  describe  the  noise,  the  confusion 
incident  to  a  grand  bolting  operation  conducted 
I  by  three  hundred  American  performers,  and  a 
I  hundred  and  fifty  black  slaves  to  help  them  1  It 
seemed  to  me  that  almost  every  man  at  table 
I  considered  himself  at  job-work  against  time, 
stuffing  sausages  and  whatever  else  he  could 
cram  into  his  throat.  But  the  dinner-scene  pre- 
sented a  spectacle  still  more  extraordinary  than 
the  breakfast.  And,  first,  as  to  the  cooking,  which 
was  after  this  mode.  Bacon,  venison,  beef,  and 
mutton,  were  all  boiled  together  in  the  same 
vessel ;  then  those  pieces  that  were  to  represent 
roast  meat  were  taken  out  and  put  into  an  oven 
for  awhile ;  after  which  a  sort  of  dirty  gravy 
was  poured  from  a  huge  pitcher  indiscriminate- 
ly upon  roast  and  boiled.  What  with  this 
strange  banquet,  and  the  clinking  of  knives  and 
forks,  the  rattling  of  plates,  the  confused  running 
about  of  troops  of  dirty  slaves,  the  numerous 
cries  for  this,  that,  and  the  other,  the  exclama- 
tions of  the  new  comers,  "  Oh,  my  gracious  !  I 
reckon  I  never  did  see  sich  a  dirty  table-cloth," 
the  nasty  appearance  of  the  incomprehensible 
dishes,  the  badness  of  the  water  brought  from 
the  creek  where  the  clothes  were  washed,  and 
the  universal  feculence  of  everything  around, 
the  scene  was  perfectly  astounding.  Twice  I 
tried  to  dine  there,  but  it  was  impossible.  I 
could  do  nothing  but  stare,  and  before  my  won- 
der was  over  everything  was  gone,  people  and 
all,  except  a  few  slow  eaters.  I  never  could 
become  reconciled  to  the  universal  filth,  as  some 
told  me  they  had  got  to  be,  and  my  wife  would 
literally  have  got  nothing  to  eat  if  I  had  not 
given  a  douceur  to  the  cook,  and  another  to  one 
of  the  black  servants,  to  provide  her  every  day 
a  small  dish  of  fried  venison  or  mutton,  for 
which  we  waited  until  it  was  placed  before 
her;  this,  with  very  good  bread— and  it  always 
was  good — was  her  only  resource.  Much 
squeezed  as  we  were  at  first,  there  was  a  sen- 
sible relaxation  and  more  elbow-room  in  a  very 
few  minutes,  in  consequence  of  the  great  num- 
bers who.  had  the  talent  of  bolting  their  "  feed" 
in  five  minutes.  A  gentleman  drew  my  atten- 
tion to  one  of  these  quick  feeders,  who  had  been 
timed  by  himself  and  others,  and  who  had  been 
observed  to  bolt  the  most  extraordinary  quanti- 
ties of  angular  pieces  of  bacon,  beef,  and  mut- 
ton, in  the  short  period  of  two  minutes  and  a 
half.  This  was  a  strange,  meagre,  sallow-look- 
ing man,  with  black  hair  and  white  whiskers 
and  beard,  as  if  his  jaws  had  done  more  work 
than  his  brains.  All  the  bolters  went  at  it  just 
as  quick  feeders  do  in  a  kennel  of  hounds,  help- 
ing themselves  to  a  whole  dish  without  cere- 
mony, cutting  off  immense  long  morsels,  and 
then  presenting  them  with  a  dexterous  turn  of 
the  tongue  to  the  anxious  oesophagus,  would 
launch  them  down  by  the  small  end  foremost, 
with  all"  the  confidence  that  an  alligator  swal- 
lows a  young  nigger,  into  that  friendly  asylum 
where  roast  and  boiled,  baked  and  stewed,  pud- 
ding and  pie,  all  that  is  good,  and  too  often 
what  is  not  very  good,  meet  for  all  sons  of  no- 
ble and  ignoble  purposes.  These  quick  feeders, 
with  scarce  an  exception,  were  gaunt,  sallow, 
uncomely-looking  persons,  incapable  of  inspiring 
much  interest  out  of  their  coffins,  always  ex- 
cepting, however,  the  performer  with  the  white 
whiskers,  whose  unrivalled  talent  in  the  present 


28 


TRAVELS   IN  AMERICA. 


state  of  the  drama,  might,  perhaps,  be  turned  to 
great  account  in  some  of  the  enlightened  capi- 
tals of  Europe. 

Chemical  solutions,  to  be  made  perfect  from 
solid  materials  in  the  proper  time,  require  first 
a  little  mechanical  aid,  that  the  greatest  possi- 
ble quantity  of  surface  may  be  presented  to  the 
solvent  power.  If  men  would  reason  thus  about 
the  faculties  of  the  stomach,  the  gastric  juices 
would  perhaps  have  a  better  chance  of  fair  play. 
Nature  has  provided  us  with  teeth  for  the  me- 
chanical purpose,  and  if  men  will  not  assist  her 
they  must  pay  the  penalty,  and  continue  to  be 
taxed  with  dyspepsia,  and  the  ghastly  physiog- 
nomies that  not  only  afflict  themselves,  but  those 
innocent  persons  who  are  compelled  to  look  upon 
their  unearthly  visages.  The  consequences  of 
this  pernicious  habit  of  quick  feeding  which  is  so 
general  in  America,  I  never  perceived  more  stri- 
kingly than  at  this  place. 

The  proprietor  of  this  watering-place,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  plan  of  over-trading,  has  had  recourse 
to  another  scheme  which  deserves  the  strongest 
reprobation.  He  lets  one  of  his  houses  to  a  set 
of  sharpers,  who  keep  a  public  gaming-table, 
that  is  open  day  and  night,  where  faro,  roulette, 
rouge  et  noir,  and  other  desperate  games  are 
played.  Thus  every  direct  encouragement  is 
given  to  vice,  and  inducements  held  out  to  the 
vilest  fellows  in  the  country  to  flock  to  the  place 
for  the  express  purpose  of  preying  upon  the  com- 
pany who  support  his  establishment.  Inconsid- 
erate and  ingenious  young  men,  who  accompa- 
ny their  families  here,  are  thus  exposed  to  the 
worst  temptations,  and  frequently  acquire  habits 
that  render  them  miserable  for  life. 

I  can  speak  with  more  satisfaction  of  the  ball- 
room, where  the  company  has  an  opportunity  of 
assembling  every  evening,  and  where  young  per- 
sons who  love  to  dance  can  amuse  themselves 
very  well :  for  the  musicians  are  far  above  the 
ordinary  rate  of  those  found  at  American  water- 
ing-places. The  refreshments  too,  which  are 
handed  about,  appeared  clean  and  very  fair,  a 
remarkable  departure  from  the  usual  course  of 
things  here.  Some  flashy-dressed  men  whom  I 
saw  in  this  room,  not  connected  with  known 
families,  but  who  merely  appeared  as  bystand- 
ers, were  pointed  out  to  me  as  members  of  the 
co-fraternity  of  gamblers,  who  drop  in  here  to 
sieze  opportunities  of  inveigling  the  young  men 
away  to  rouge  et  noir.  Being  an  Englishman, 
I  was  asked  by  some  ladies  if  I  knew  Colonel 
Smith  of  the  British  army,  who  had  served  at 
Waterloo,  and  answering  in  the  negative,  he 
was  pointed  out  to  me  waltzing  with  a  young 
lady.  The  colonel,  for  an  Englishman,  had  a 
most  suspicious-looking  beard  from  ear  to  ear,  a 
prodigious  display  of  gold  watchguard,  a  gait 
that  did  not  look  very  much  like  Waterloo,  and 
a  face  with  a  pair  of  hairy  jowls  to  it,  so  remark- 
able for  low  expression,  that  I  could  not  help 
forming  a  very  unfavourable  opinion  of  him. 
Soon  after,  drawing  up  to  where  he  was  stand- 
ing talking  to  his  partner,  not  to  hear  what  he 
was  talking  about,  hut  to  hear  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  I  detected  my  fine  friend  in  a  moment,  for 
his  language,  which  came  out  by  mouthfuls,  was 
of  a  low,  flowery  kind,  quite  unknown  to  gentle- 1 
men,  and  what  more  especially  blew  him  up,  J 
was  his  attempt  to  keep  down  the  drawling  ver-  j 
nacular  of  the  State  of  Mississippi ;  in  attempt-  ! 


ing  to  save  himself  at  that  point  he  lost  himself 
and  Waterloo  altogether.  I  now  advised  the 
brother  of  one  of  the  ladies  he  had  made  dancing 
acquaintance  with,  to  ask  him  what  regiment  he 
had  served  in,  but  the  fellow  equivocated  so 
much  that  I  had  no  longer  any  hesitation  in 
giving  my  opinion  of  the  true  character  of  this 
swell,  who,  soon  after  perceiving  the  wind  was 
no  longer  fair  for  him,  ceased  to  come  to  the 
ball-room.  This  place  was  the  only  part  of  the 
establishment  where  cleanliness  and  decorum 
prevailed,  for  the  reason,  I  suppose,  that  the 
..enteel  families  who  had  their  private  cabins 
always  attended  it.  But  there,  as  well  as  every- 
where, a  never-failing  topic  was  the  general  dis- 
order, and  dirt,  and  utter  want  of  personal  com- 
fort. 

For  the  last  two  days  of  our  stay  my  stomach, 
was  so  entirely  overcome  by  the  disgusting  fecu- 
lence of  the  dining-hall,  that  I  absented  myself 
at  every  meal,  getting  something  occasionally 
to  eat  at  a  very  odd  fellow's,  who  had  run  up  a 
shanty  in  the  woods  not  far  from  the  Springs, 
and  which  I  had  accidentally  met  with  in  my 
rambles.  This  man  was  named  Wright,  and  he 
had  formerly  kept  an  oyster-cellar  affialtimore. 
Any  one  who  knows  how  to  fry  oysters,  gener- 
ally knows  how  to  fry  anything  else ;  and  as 
Baltimore  is  a  place  that  not  only  contains  a 
class  of  jolly  citizens,  but  captains  and  no  cap- 
tains without  number,  of  slave-ships  and  pirati- 
cal vessels,  who  live  in  oyster-Cellars  when  they 
are  on  shore,  it  may  be  presumed  that  Mr. 
Wright  came  here  to  show  his  talent  in  that 
line.  In  fact  he  told  me  that  having  been  for  a 
short  time  last  year  to  the  White  Sulphur,  "  the 
doings  there  was  sich  as  he  never  seen  afore," 
and  perceiving  an  opening  for  his  own  talent,  he 
first  secured  the  right  to  a  small  piece  of  land 
in  the  woods  near  to  the  road,  without  any  body 
suspecting  his  object,  then  ran  up  a  slight  log- 
hut  by  way  of  experiment,  and  afterwards- 
brought  from  Baltimore  various  kinds  of  confec- 
tionary, with  Champagne,  Madeira,  claret,  bot- 
tled ale,  rum,  brandy,  gin,  lemons,  sugar,  and 
indeed  all  the  appliances  of  a  jolly  existence. 
He  had  also  secured  a  quantity  of  ice,  and  had 
set  up  some  rough  tables,  with  leafy  bowers 
over  them,  at  which  I  have,  upon  various  occa- 
sions, after  a  hard  day's  work  in  the  mountains, 
had  the  justest  cause  to  admire  his  skill  in  veni- 
son steaks,  mutton  chops,  and  in  the  concoction 
of  inimitable  ice  punch.  Here,  too,  when  the 
thermometer  was  at  90°,  we  were  always  sure 
of  getting  a  delicious  glass  of  ice  lemonade. 
At  the  period  of  my  departure  Mr.  Wright  was 
becoming  a  formidable  rival  to  the  bar-room  of 
the  White  Sulphur,  where  cock  tails,  gin  slings, 
gum  ticklers,  mint  juleps,  phlegm  cutters,  and 
other  American  sherbets,  were  brewed  from 
morn  to  night  for  the  crowds  of  spitting  and 
swearing,  cursing  and  coughing,  smoking  and 
stinking  reel  gentlemen  that  passed  their  time 
there  ;  and  such  was  his  success  that  his  inten- 
tion was  to  extend  his  operations  the  succeed- 
ing year. 

One  of  the  advantages  I  had  derived  from  my 
residence  here  consisted  in  a  great  variety  of 
designations  that  were  given  to  me  by  different 
people.  If  we  are  to  believe  the  professions  ot 
Republicans,  they  abhor  titles  of  every  kind,  yet 
they  seem  constantly  to  betray  a  confirmed  ban- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


29 


kering  after  them;  upon  the  principle,  I  sup 
pose,  that  things  which  are  very  rare  always 
have  a  high  value  placed  upon  them,  and  that 
when  diamonds  are  not  to  be  had,  weak  people 
will  gratify  their  vanity  by  wearing  paste.  In 
Massachusetts  and  the  New  England  States 
the  plainest  farmer,  as  soon  as  he  is  elected  to 
the  State  Legislature,  is  metamorphosed  into 
11  The  Honourable  Mr.  Slick."  In  New  York  a 
young  lawyer,  for  political  services,  is  named 
Inspector-General  of  the  Militia — an  office  with- 
out duties  and  without  emolument,  as  the  militia 
never  assembles  in  a  body — and  so  becomes 
•dubbed  General  for  life,  although  he  may  be 
turned  out  of  his  office  the  next  election.  A 
General  Officer  of  the  United  States  army  once 
told  me  that  he  dined  with  the  Governor  of 
New  York  by  invitation,  and  that  whilst  at 
table,  hearing  repeatedly,  "  Shall  I  have  the 
honour  of  a  glass  of  wine  with  you,  General  ]" 
he  at  first  took  the  compliment  to  himself,  filled 
his  glass,  and  looked  for  his  man ;  but  as  he 
always  failed  in  catching  his  eye,  he  began  to 
be  more  cautious,  and  at  length  perceived  to 
his  surprise,  that  instead  of  being  the  only 
General  at  the  table,  there  was  a  very  con- 
siderable sprinkling  of  them,  not  one  of  whom 
had  ever  been  a  soldier.  But  here,  in  Virginia, 
the  rage  for  titles  is  greater  even  than  at  the 
north.  Almost  every  person  of  the  better  class 
is  at  least  a  Colonel,  and  every  tavern-keeper 
is  at  least  a  Major.  Occasionally  a  few  Kaplins 
are  met  with  amongst  the  stage-drivers,  but 
such  an  animal  as  a  Letctenant  only  exists  on  the 
muster-roll  of  the  Militia,  for  I  never  heard  of 
any  one  having  seen  a  live  one  in  Republican 
America.  A  well  known  gentleman  of  Win- 
chester, in  this  State,  related  an  amusing  anec- 
dote to  me  on  this  subject.  Crossing  the  Po- 
tomac into  Virginia,  with  his  horse,  in  a  ferry- 
boat, the  ferryman  said,  "  Major,  I  wish  you 
would  lead  your  horse  a  little  forward,"  which 
he  immediately  did,  observing  to  the  man,  "  I 
am  not  a  Major,  and  you  need  not  call  me  one." 
To  this  the  ferryman  replied,  "  Well,  Kurnel,  I 
ax  your  pardon,  and  I'll  not  call  you  so  no 
more."  Being  arrived  at  the  landing-place  he 
led  his  horse  out  of  the  boat,  and  said,  "  My 
good  friend,  I  am  a  very  plain  man,  I  am  neither 
a  Colonel  nor  a  Major,  I  have  no  title  at  all, 
and  I  don't  like  them.  How  much  have  I  to 
pay  you  1"  The  ferryman  looked  at  him,  and 
said,  "  You  are  the  first  white  man  I  ever  cross- 
ed this  ferry  that  warn't  jist  nobody  at  all,  and 
I  swar  I'll  not  charge  you  nothing." 
.  If  the  various  people  I  had  dealings  with  at 
this  place  had  acted  upon  this  principle  with 
me,  I  should  have  saved  a  good  deal  of  money  ; 
for  Mr.  Wright,  seeing  me  curious  about  rocks 
and  shells,  always  called  me  Doctor;  most  of 
the  people  at  the  Springs,  with'  whom  I  had 
formed  an  acquaintance,  called  me  Colonel; 
and  some  of  the  blackeys  that  waited  upon  me, 
called  me  Judge, 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  system  of  Alleghany  Ridges  caused  by  an  upheaval 
from  below,  and  the  White  Sulphur  Spriijgs  a  conse- 
quence of  the  movement — Gaseous  contents  of  the 
Waters— White  Rock  Mountains— Horizontal  Fossii- 
iferous  Strata  in  place. 


THE  Alleghany  Mountain,  or  Backbone  Ridge, 
mentioned  at  page  20,  is  the  central  part  of  this 
broad  elevated  belt  which  traverses  so  great  a 
portion  of  North  America.  We  had  now  cross- 
ed it,  and  found  a  sensible  change  in  the  general 
dip  of  the  strata,  a  circumstance  of  itself  suffi- 
ciently indicative  of  the  origin  of  this  great 
belt,  a  very  brief  account  of  which  will  now  be 
given. 

The  Alleghanies,  which  is  the  general  name 
the  ridges  of  this  belt  have  obtained  in  North 
America,  have  their  south-western  termination 
not  more  than  200  miles  from  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  run  through  the  continent  in  a 
general  direction  of  north-east,  far  into  that 
part  of  Canada  which  lies  north  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  ;  for  although  the  distinct  manner  in 
which  the  various  ridges  are  separated  from 
each  other  in  the  more  southern  parts  of  the 
belt  is  often  all  but  lost  in  those  northern  parts, 
yet  the  great  limestone  valley,  which  more  or 
less  accompanies  it  throughout  its  extent,  and 
which  is  most  conspicuous  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  that  valley  of  Shenandoah  in  Virginia  which 
has  been  spoken  of  at  page  13,  distinctly  ap- 
pears in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  St.  John,  near  the 
heads  of  the  Saguenay  River.  The  length, 
therefore,  of  this  elevated  belt  cannot  be  far 
short  of  1700  miles,  and  its  breadth  may  be 
estimated  from  80  to  120.  That  the  whole 
series  of  ridges  has  been  raised  from  a  lower 
level,  and  that  the  maximum  upheaving  force 
has  been  in  the  direction  of  this  Backbone 
Ridge,  which  is  the  most  elevated  of  them  all, 
is  apparent  from  the  general  structure  of  the 
ridges ;  for  although  the  more  highly  com- 
plicated fractures  and  arrangement  of  the  beds 
of  the  eastern  ridges,  where  every  form  of  dy- 
namic action  appears  to  have  been  exerted, 
shows  that  a  singular  intensity  of  lorce  pre- 
vailed there ;  yet  the  general  movement  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  simultaneous  and  undu- 
latory  one,  evidences  of  an  anticlinal  and  syn- 
clinal bending  being  common  to  the  entire  belt. 
This  movement,  whether  it  commenced  from 
the  west  of  the  east,  was  evidently  less  pa- 
roxysmal in  the  central  part  of  the  belt,  for  the 
rocks  at  the  Backbone  Ridge  begin  to  dip  west- 
wardly  instead  of  easterly  as  they  did  before ; 
and  in  advancing  in  a  westerly  direction  to- 
wards the  Mississippi,  they  gradually  lose  their 
inclination,  and  come  more  or  less  to  the  hori- 
zontal level.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the 
mineral  water  of  the  White  Sulphur  has  been 
liberated  from  its  subterranean  abode  by  the 
same  sort  of  movement  that  has  brought  the 
waters  of  the  Warm  Springs  to  the  surface. 
The  White  Sulphur  Springs,  so  called  not  from 
any  efflorescence  of  sulphur,  but  from  the  pale 
yellowish  colour  of  the  confervse  that  you  see 
around  the  sides  of  the  spring,  are  on  the  south 
side  of  Howard's  Creek,  a  pretty  stream  that 
rises  to  the  north-east,  and  flows  into  the  Green 
Briar  river.  In  various  parts  of  the  valley,  and 
in  the  vicinity  of  this  stream,  I  observed  that 
the  waters  were  tainted  with  sulphuretted  hy- 
drogen, as  well  as  those  at  the  White  Sulphur 
Springs ;  it  is  probable  therefore,  that  if  the 
stream  were  diverted  a  little  from  its  course, 
other  mineral  springs  equivalent  in  value  to 
those  now  in  use  would  be  discovered. 
The  gaseous  contents  of  the  waters  are  nitro- 


30 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


gen,  sulphuretted  hyJrogen,  with  perhaps  small 
portions  of  carbonic  acid  ;  hence  they  resemble 
the  Harrogate  waters  in  England,  and  like  them, 
are  not  particularly  agreeable  to  the  taste,  the 
sulphuretted  hydrogen  being  nauseous,  and  the 
sulphate  of  magnesia  and  other  constituents  in 
them  very  bitter.  I  only  drank  of  them  once, 
and  not  being  fond  of  nasty  things,  never  had 
the  curiosity  to  taste  them  again.  The  tempe- 
rature is  moderate  ;  after  a  long  rain  it  ranges 
from  61°  to  63°,  and  is  somewhat  higher  in  dry 
weather ;  but  as  perhaps  it  never  rises  higher 
than  65°,  the  waters  cannot  be  said  to  be  ther- 
mal in  the  sense  that  those  are  in  the  Warm 
Springs  Valley,  and  only  so  in  proportion  to 
their  excess  over  the  atmospheric  mean.  The 
valley  in  which  the  sulphuretted  waters  are 
situated  is  very  beautiful ;  the  outlines  of  the 
hills  also  are  pleasingly  rounded  off,  as  decom- 
posing sandstones  often  are.  In  the  dry  beds 
of  mountain  brooks  which  abound  here,  quan- 
tities of  fossil  impressions  on  sandstone  are 
found,  producta,  encrinites,  &c.,  the  bed  of 
which,  until  the  23rd,  I  had  not  been  able  to 
find  in  situ.  On  that  day  my  son  and  myself 
made  a  rather  fatiguing  excursion  up  the  White 
Rock  Mountain,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
eminences  in  this  part  of  the  country,  lying 
about  west  by  south  from  the  While  Sulphur. 

The  base  of  this  mountain  comes  down  to 
the  Lewisburgh  turnpike,  about  three  miles 
from  the  spa,  but  hearing  it  was  not  very  ac- 
cessible on  this  side,  we  began  the  ascent  under 
the  farthest  peak  to  the  south  ;  and  getting  en- 
tangled in  a  hunter's  path,  we  at  last  "thought 
we  were  too  far  to  the  south,  and  were  ascend- 
ing the  skirts  of  the  main  Alleghany  ridge.  In 
order  to  see  where  we  were,  we  clambered  up 
a  very  steep  ridge  on  our  right,  at  an  angle  of 
about  60°,  and  with  great  difficulty  reached  the 
top.  On  the  other  side  there  was  a  deep  gloomy 
dell,  thickly  clothed  with  a  forest  that  had  yet 
been  respected  by  man,  and  which  seemed  to 
be  the  proper  abode  of  panthers  during  the  heat 
of  the  day.  From  hence  w°  saw  the  White 
Rock  Mountain,  which  was  the  object  of  our 
excursion,  distant  at  least  two  miles,  and  tower- 
ing above  the  little  hills  below.  We  had  be- 
come so  exhausted  in  clambering  up  the  ridge 
where  we  were  now  .standing,  that  our  day's 
undertaking  began  to  assume  an  importance  we 
had  not  invested  it  with  before ;  and,  afraid  to 
waste  our  strength,  which  we  should  have  done 
if  we  had  attempted  the  mountain  by  way  of  so 
intricate  a  dell,  we  determined  to  retrace  our 
steps,  so  that  we  lost  three  hours  before  we 
reached  the  point  where  we  thought  it  advis- 
able to  commence  the  ascent. 

There  was  a  house  about  a  mile  from  us,  kept 
by  a  person  called  Dixon,  and  thither  my  son 
went  to  get  some  water  and  acquire  informa- 
tion. On  his  return  he  reported  that  there  was 
no  path,  that  the  mountain  was  excessively 
steep,  and  that  if  we  got  up — as  his  informant 
stated — we  should  not  be  worth  sixpence  when 
we  got  down.  It  is  remarkable  how  incurious 
and  indolent  the  white  people  of  this  district 
are ;  they  never  enter  upon  any  occupation  un- 
less there  is  money  to  be  made  by  it,  or  unless 
they  are  compelled  to  do  so.  Every  man  has 
a  horse,  hence  you  never  see  any  one  but  a 
negro  on  foot ;  and  they  cannot  comprehend 


why  individuals  shouiu  wander  from  the  high 
road,  and  place  themselves  in  difficult  and  dan- 
gerous situations,  especially  when  they  are  with- 
out arms  to  kill  game,  or  to  defend  themselves 
with  ;  the  difficulties,  therefore,  that  present 
themselves  to  any  little  enterprise  that  is  out 
of  the  common  way,  are  very  much  magnified 
by  them,  and  they  always  discourage  rather 
than  comfort  you.  After  resting  a  short  time, 
we  determined  to  finish  the  adve.nture,  and  be- 
gan the  ascent.  We  were  two  hours  and  a  half 
before  we  reached  the  highest  peak,  which  ap- 
pears to  be  about  800  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
valley.  The  ascent  commenced  by  a  very  rough 
slope,  and  a  small  ridge  leading  to  the  base  of 
the  main  peak  :  its  inclination  in  many  places 
was  near  60°,  and  every  part  of  the  soil  and 
herbage  was  so  glossy  and  slippery,  as  well  as 
the  soles  of  our  boots,  that  we  were  continually 
falling,  and  could  never  have  got  up  without  the 
aid  of  the  branches  and  twigs  that  we  held  on, 
by.  We  were  constantly  obliged  to  take  breath, 
in  order  to  make  a  rush  at  any  other  shoot  above 
which  appeared  strong  enough  to  hold  us. 

The  view  from  the  summit  of  the  peak,  which 
is  a  rather  flat  level  of  about  half  an  acre,  is  ex- 
ceedingly fine  :  the  entire  length  of  the  valley  is 
distinctly  seen,  but  distance  destroys  the  beau- 
ties of  its  details.  Farther  to  the  west  you  see 
the  mountainous  ridges  that  run  through  Green 
Briar  Valley.  We  remained  at  the  top  only 
long  enough  to  make  a  sketch  of  the  scene,  the 
geological  features  of  which  are  less  distinctly 
marked  than  those  presented  in  the  view  of  the 
Alleghany  ridges  from  the  Warm  Springs  Mount- 
ain. On  our  descent  we  deviated  a  little  to  the 
right,  finding  it  so  extremely  steep  as  to  be  rath- 
er dangerous  ;  but  seeing  a  rock  projecting  there, 
the  beds  of  which  appeared  nearly  horizontal,  I 
went  to  it ;  and  it  turned  out  to  be  the  red  fer- 
ruginous sandstone  with  fossils  in  situ,  of  which 
I  had  previously  found  specimens  in  the  dry 
brooks.  This  rock  is  about  100  feet  from  the 
summit  of  the  mountain.  Having  often  found 
fragments  of  this  fossiliferous  rock  midway  in 
the  valley,  it  is  evident  there  has  been  a  great 
destruction  of  the  ancient  surface.  From  this 
point  we  let  ourselves,  with  the  aid  of  the  twigs, 
down  a  slope,  which  had  a  very  sharp  inclina- 
tion, and  if  it  had  terminated  in  a  mural  escarp- 
ment, our  situation  would  have  been  somewhat 
precarious :  as  it  was,  we  had  a  dark  gloomy 
dell  beneath  us,  and  evening  was  approaching. 
Had  any  accident  happened  to  either,  or  to  both 
of  us,  we  should  have  been  very  much  embar- 
rassed, for  men  provided  with  nothing  but  port- 
folios, hammers,  thermometers,  and  instruments 
for  observation,  would  find  them  of  very  little 
use  on  breaking  a  limb.  We  had  left  our  lodg- 
ings as  early  as  nine  A.M.  ;  we  had  been  told  it 
was  but  four  miles  to  the  top  of  the  mountain, 
were  unprovided  with  any  thing,  and  night  was 
setting  in.  Water  was  what  we  most  suffered 
the  want  of.  Afraid  of  getting  entangled  in  the 
dell  beneath  us,  we  retraced  part  of  our  steps, 
until  we  reached  a  point  from  which  we  could 
proceed  on  a  horizontal  line  along  the  mountain 
side,  until  we  regained  that  by  which  we  as- 
cended. 

The  thorny  Robinia  pseudo-acacia  abounded 
so  much  that  my  clothes  were  torn  to  tatters ; 
and,  being  at  length  brought  into  as  bad  a  situa- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


31 


tion  as  Humphry  Clinker  was,  I  was  obliged  to 
tie  them  up  with  my  pocket  handkerchief,  and 
exchange  my  short  roundabout  jacket  for  my 
son's  longer  shooting  coat.  When  we  reached 
the  first  peak,  which  we  had  called  Little  White 
Rock,  we  again  deviated  to  the  right,  and,  leav- 
ing the  line  of  our  ascent,  plunged  into  the  dell 
in  search  of  water,  about  which  we  both  of  us 
felt  very  anxious.  I  soon  perceived  an  unusual 
dampness  in  the  air,  which  bore  the  smell  of 
water,  and,  following  a  small  dry  brook  some 
distance,  we,  to  our  great  joy,  found  a  spring 
of  delicious  water.  Here  we  refreshed  our- 
selves most  luxuriously;  and,  reinvigorated,  at 
length  extricated  ourselves  from  the  dell,  and 
reached  the  high  road.  It  was  night  when  we 
reached  our  lodgings,  exhausted  and  worn  out, 
but  supper  was  over,  and  we  could  not  procure 
even  a  piece  of  bread.  Dressing  ourselves  in 
haste,  we  got  again  in  motion,  and  dragging  our 
reluctant  limbs  to  the  place  where  Wright's 
shanty  was,  we  sat  down  to  a  venison  steak  and 
a  bottle  of  ale  ;  having  finished  which,  we  tramp- 
ed back  again  to  the  White  Sulphur,  and  made 
our  appearance  at  the  ball-room,  where  our 
friends  were  beginning  to  inquire  for  us.  We 
had  been  incessantly  in  motion  for  eleven  hours. 

During  my  stay  at  this  place  I  remarked  that 
the  adjacent  hills,  as  well  as  the  establishment 
of  the  Spring,  were  generally  covered  with  fog 
until  past  eight  in  the  morning,  after  which  hour 
it  is  dispersed  by  the  sun.  In  rainy  weather 
the  fog  is  unusually  heavy,  and  then  a  little  fire 
is  acceptable  both  morning  and  evening.  It 
rained  on  the  20th  of  August,  and  on  the  21st  I 
found  the  thermometer  at  seven  A.M.  gave  62° 
Fahr.  for  the  temperature  of  the  water,  and  56° 
for  the  atmosphere.  When  the  sun  broke  out, 
the  thermometer  rose  immediately  to  82°,  and 
at  noun  to  91°. 

As  to  the  curative  properties  of  the  waters 
of  the  White  Sulphur  Springs,  they  appear  to  be 
universally  and  justly  admitted.  I  had  various 
opportunities  of  conversing  with  intelligent  phy- 
sicians who  annually  attend  them,  and  they  all 
concurred  in  stating  their  great  efficacy  in  re- 
lieving persons  afflicted  with  obstructions  of  the 
liver,  dyspepsia,  and  the  derangements  arising 
from  those  bilious  and  intermittent  fevers  to 
which  people  who  inhabit  low  marshy  lands  on 
the  large  rivers  are  subject.  This  opinion  seems 
to  be  sustained,  as  well  by  the  successful  cures 
which  they  annually  perform,  as  by  reasoning 
founded  on  medicinal  theories.  These  sulphur- 
etted waters  have  also  obtained  a  reputation  for 
being  useful  in  cutaneous  complaints.  I  had  an 
evidence  of  this  in  my  son,  who  arrived  in  this 
region  troubled  with  large  ringworms  in  various 
parts  of  his  face,  which  were  soon,  by  the  use 
of  the  waters,  successfully  cured.  But  the  most 
active  causes,  which  perhaps  concur  with  the 
waters  to  the  restoration  of  health,  are  the  jour- 
ney to  the  mountains,  the  exchange  of  a  low  in- 
fected atmosphere  for  the  invigorating  air  of  a 
salubrious  region,  the  fine  exercise  enjoyed  in 
the  hills,  and  a  relief  from  the  cares  of  business. 
The  inhabitants  of  the  marshy  lands  of  the  tide- 
water districts  live  there  at  an  expense  of  health 
both  fearful  and  unavoidable,  hut  the  fertility  of 
the  land  makes  the  temptation  irresistible.  Since 
man,  therefore,  will  go  and  increase  and  multi- 
ply under  such  unfavourable  circumstances,  ex- 


I  changing  health  for  wealth,  it  ought  to  be 
sidered  a  providential  dispensation  that  t 


con- 
there 

should  be  a  mountainous  region  containing  so 
many  precious  resources  so  happily  situated — 
midway,  as  it  were,  between  the  inhabitants  of 
the  low  lands  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  those 
of  the  basin  of  the  Mississippi.  Here  they  can 
annually  congregate,  reinvigorate  their  sickly 
frames,  and  by  communicating  to  each  other  the 
information  they  bring  from  their  respective 
countries,  reciprocally  enlarge  their  minds,  carry 
home  useful  information,  and  become,  in  every 
sense  of  the  word,  more  united  as  citizens  of 
the  same  nation. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Paying  beforehand  as  bad  as  not  paying  all — Journey  to  the 
Sweet  Springs — Beauty  of  the  country — Gaseous  and 
solid  Contents  of  the  Waters— Remarkable  dam  formed 
of  Travertine — Ancient  Travertine  350  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  present  Springs,  prohnbly  derived  from  them 
before  the  Valley  existed — Proofs  of  the  ancient  Surface 
being  lowered. 

THIS  morning,  August  27th,  found  us  stand- 
ing, at  five  A.M.,  by  the  road  side,  with  our  lug- 
gage, ready  to  get  into  the  stage  coach,  in  which 
our  places  had  been  taken  to  the  Sweet  Springs, 
and  paid  for  two  days  before.  Prudent  people, 
who  wish  to  be  quite  sure  of  getting  away  from 
this  Tophet,  will  of  course  secure  their  places 
several  days  beforehand  by  paying  for  them. 
We  had  now  to  learn  that  this  was  insufficient. 
When  the  coach  stopped,  I  perceived  it  had  its 
full  complement  of  nine  passengers  inside.  As 
it  was  perfectly  clear  that  I  had  a  right  to  places 
there,  I  immediately  opened  the  door,  when  a 
general  growl  informed  me  there  was  no  room. 
The  greater  part  of  the  passengers  were  men, 
not  of  whom  seemed  disposed  to  stir.  Those 
Americans  who  are  underbred,  rather  plume 
themselves  upon  their  deference  to  ladies  when 
travelling,  and  I  have  often  seen  them  somewhat 
officious  in  their  politeness,  ar  far  as  trifles 
went ;  as  if  they  wanted  to  show  that  they 
knew  it  was  not  usual  to  be  rude  when  it  could 
be  avoided,  or  to  spit  upon  ladies'  gowns  when 
they  could  do  the  same  thing  over  the  side  of  a 
steamer.  But  as  to  their  giving  up  any  good 
substantial  thing  they  were  in  possession  of 
without  an  equivalent,  that  was  a  virtue  that 
did  not  seem. to  enter  at  least  into  the  contem- 
plation of  this  stage  coachful  of  animals,  for  not 
one  of  them  offered  to  resign  his  seat  to  my 
wife,  though  I  told  them  my  places  had  been 
paid  for  two  days,  whilst  scarce  one  of  them* 
had  engaged  his  place  previous  to  the  preceding 
evening.  I  now  appealed  to  the  driver,  who  re- 
fused to  interfere,  and  said  we  might  get  on  the 
top.  The  very  idea  of  putting  a  lady  on  the  top 
>f  such  a  preposterous  machine  as  that  stage 
coach,  was  an  absurdity.  Looking  more  nar- 
rowly into  the  inside,  to  see  if  there  was  any 
lecent  person  that  I  could  hope  to  prevail  upon, 
I  espied  a  dark  ill-looking  mulatto,  and  asked 
lim  civilly  to  ride  on  the  top,  but  Mr.  Gamboge 
iked  his  place  as  well  as  the  rest,  and  refused  ; 
ipon  which  I  called  rny  son,  and  told  the  fellow, 
that  if  he  did  not  without  further  delay  evacu- 
ate the  premises,  we  would  instantly  drag  him 
out  neck  and  heels.  Seeing  we  were  in  earn- 
est, he  got  out  sulkily,  and  my  wife  get  in.  I 
mounted  the  top,  and  my  son  wisley  prefeied 


32 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


walking  the  whole  18  miles,  for  a  cold  bleak  fog 
covered  the  Alleghany  mountain,  and  I  suffered 
very  much  outside,  having  put  on  nothing  but  a 
light  dimity  round-about  jacket,  expecting  to 
ride  inside.  The  road  was  very  good,  and  led, 
in  a  southern  direction,  through  many  romantic 
dells  and  defiles  of  the  Alleghany  mountains 
into  a  broad  valley,  where  the  Sweet  Springs 
are  situated,  at  the  foot  of  an  inferior  ridge,  here 
called  Peter's  Mountain,  and  which  is  probably 
a  continuation  of  the  ridge  called  Warm  Springs 
Mountain,  distant  from  hence  about  50  miles  in 
a  north  east  direction. 

This  ample  valley  is  most  agreeably  diversi- 
fied with  hummocks,  spurs,  and  knobs  jutting 
out  from  the  mountains,  all  of  them  well  wood- 
ed, and  interspersed  with  numerous  sequestered 
coves  and  wild  looking  little  vales  which  sepa- 
rate them.  At  11  miles  from  the  White  Sulphur 
we  came  to  an  enterprising  settler's  called  Crow 
who  keeps  a  tolerably  clean  tavern,  and  here  a 
small  stream,  in  front  of  his  house,  runs  on  the 
limestone.  Three  miles  from  this  place,  and 
four  from  the  Sweet  Springs,  the  country  opens, 
the  mountains  recede,  luxuriant  crops  of  corn 
are  seen  growing  on  the  fertile  bottom-land, 
through  which  the  stream  flows  that  takes  its 
rise  at  the  Sweet  Springs ;  indeed  all  the  adja- 
cent country  possesses  a  great  deal  of  beauty, 
which  is  increased  by  a  lofty  and  very  graceful 
knoll  that  rises  immediately  south  of  the  springs. 
The  cabins  of  the  establishment,  though  by 
no  means  as  good  as  they  might  be,  were  rurally 
dispersed  over  the  foot  of  the  slope,  and  nu- 
merous handsome  single  umbrageous  oak-trees 
served  as  a  shade  from  the  hot  beams  of  the 
sun,  and  added  much  to  the  pleasing  aspect  of 
the  scene.  We  were  put  into  a  cabin  that  was 
old  and  rude  enough,  but  it  was  roomy  and  wa- 
ter-tight, and  we  had  no  disagreeable  neighbours. 
"What  a  delightful  country  this  would  be  if  there 
were  none  but  clean  well-behaved  people  in  it ! 
Here  then,  finding  a  tranquil  and  agreeable  rest- 
ing-place, we  determined  to  remain  a  few  days, 
and  recover  from  the  disgust  we  had  experi- 
enced at  the  White  Sulphur.  We  found  an  abun- 
dance of  clean  and  good  provisions,  venison,  mut- 
ton, good  bread  and  butter,  and  excellent  milk  ; 
the  pastry  was  also  good  and  abundant ;  and, 
amidst  this  general  plenty  and  cleanliness,  and 
the  constant  obligingness  of  Mr.  Rogers  the 
lardlord,  and  his  family,  we  soon  got  into  capi- 
tal good  humour  again  with  everybody  and 
everything  in  this  charming  district.  We  heard 
of  other  springs  not  far  from  us  ;  there  were  the 
salt  sulphur,  the  red  sulphur,  and  others ;  those 
who  had  visited  them  spoke  highly  of  the  clean- 
liness and  abundance  of  those  establishments, 
•and  I  found  that  Mr.  Caldwell  enjoyed  an  undis- 
puted notoriety  for  everything  that  was  offensive 
to  the  visitors  to  the  mountains,  a  fact  which 
points  to  the  inevitable  results  which  attend  in- 
dolence and  want  of  capacity.  I  had  such  a 
long  tour  before  me,  that  I  had  not  time  to  visit 
the  other  springs,  and  therefore  devoted  the 
short  period  I  remained  here  to  some  very  curi- 
ous natural  phenomena  in  the  neighbourhood, 
which  had  never  attracted  public  attention,  and 
the  most  remarkable  of  which  was  the  manner 
in  which  travertine  had  been  deposited  here, 
both  in  ancient  and  modern  times. 

The,  Sweet  Springs  break  out  very  copiously 
at  the  foot  of  a  pretty  knoll,  which  extends  about 


1  three  quarters  of  a  mile  to  Peter's  Mountain, 
'  and  are  received  in  a  neat  reservoir  appropria- 
•  ted  to  drinking,  the  surplus  being  conducted  by 
j  different  conduits  into  two  separate  baths.  In 
I  the  bath  I  found  the  temperature  72°  Fhhr.,  the 
atmospheric  temperature  in  the  shade  being  57° 
30',  and  in  the  sun  62°.  I  never  remained  in 
the  bath  more  than  five  or  ten  minutes,  and  al- 
ways felt  a  delicious  glow  on  coming  out,  which 
left  me  without  lassitude,  and  had  a  very  bra- 
cing effect.  The  gaseous  contents  were  nitro- 
gen, carbonic  acid  in  abundance,  and  perhaps  a 
little  oxygen ;  all  these  came  up  very  freely 
through  the  transparent  fluid,  as  at  the  Warm 
Springs.  The  solid  contents  are  carbonate  of 
lime,  sulphate  of  magnesia,  sulphate  of  lime, 
and  a  very  minute  quantity  of  iron.  The 
sweetish  taste  they  have,  which  has  given 
their  name  to  the  waters,  is  probably  occa- 
sioned by  a  small  quantity  of  magnesia  in  com- 
bination with  carbonic  acid.  These  are  not 
the  only  mineral  waters  in  this  valley ;  other 
springs  come  to  the  surface  in  it.  Not  more 
than  half  a  mile  to  the  north-east  from  the  Sweet 
Springs,  there  is  one  of  a  similar  character  ;  and 
at  no  great  distance,  various  chalybeate  springs, 
with  some  that  contain  sulphuretted  hydrogen. 
But  to-return  to  the  curious  deposits  of  ancient 
and  modern  travertine. 

Before  the  waters  of  the  Sweet  Springs  have 
left  their  source  100  yards,  they  begin  to  depos- 
it carbonate  of  lime,  which  has  formed  into  a 
regular  travertine  on  the  sides  of  a  brook  run- 
ning near  the  enclosure  of  the  establishment, 
and  which  pursues  its  course  thence  through 
the  rich  bottom  of  the  valley.  When  the  stream 
has  flowed  on  for  about  two  miles,  it  reaches  a 
fall,  where  there  is  a  saw-mill.  This  fall  is 
about  550  yards  wide  across  the  valley,  and  is 
called  by  the  country  people  the  Beaver-dam, 
they  supposing  it  to  have  been  constructed  by 
the  beavers  in  past  times  when  they  existed  in 
this  valley.  In  fact,  from  its  great  width,  and 
from  the  circumstance  of  many  logs  lying  on  its 
slope,  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  should  be 
thought  to  be  the  remains  of  one  of  the  well- 
tnown  structures  of  these  animals.  On  exam- 
ning  this  fall  and  its  broad  slope,  now  entirely 
grown  up  with  bushes  and  brakes,  I  was  sur- 
irised  to  find  that  it  was  not  a  log-dam  con- 
structed by  beavers,  but  that  the  whole  slope 
consisted  of  calcareous  matter  of  the  same 
character  as  that  I  had  observed  at  the  Sweet 
Springs.  It  was  evident,  therefore,  that  the 
stream,  now  only  a  few  yards  broad,  had  once 
covered  the  whole  surface  of  the  valley,  and 
hat  the  water,  in  passing  over  this  fall,  which 
must  have  been  a  very  gentle  one  at  first,  had 
gradually  built  up  a  calcareous  dam  to  its  pres- 
ent height,  over  which  its  waters  had  at  some 
period  been  discharged,  as  in  the  case  of  ordi- 
nary dams,  over  the  whole  breadth  of  550  yards. 
In  this  curious  phenomenon  we  have  evidence 
)f  a  surprising  diminution  in  the  volume  of  a 
hermal  water ;  and  reflecting  upon  this,  it 
struck  me  that,  if  it  were  so,  the  flat  land  at 
he  bottom  of  the  slope  below  the  dam  must 
Iso  have  been  covered  by  this  calcareous  stream 
n  proportion  to  its  breadth,  and  upon  examining 
t  I  found  it  to  be  so,  the  travertine  extending 
"or  a  great  distance  on  each  side  of  the  now 
liminished  volume.  I  then  followed  the  stream 
for  three  quarters  of  a  mile,  to  a  cascade  forty- 


TRAVELS' IN  AMERICA. 


two  feet  high  and  about  six  feet  wide,  projected 
in  a  very  beautiful  sheet  upon  a  strong  bed  of 
slate,  highly  inclined,  which  in  many  places 
was  covered  with  a  stalagmitio  floor  of  traver- 
tine, a  foot  thick.  On  scrambling  down  to  the 
slate,  I  had  a  front  view  of  the  cascade,  and 
saw  that  it  was  projected  from  a  bold  mural 
ledge  of  travertine,  from-  which  depended  an 
infinite  variety  of  stalactitic  rods  and  pilasters. 
Amongst  other  curious  appearances,  I  observed 
a  fir-tree  (Abies  Canadensis),  about  forty  years 
old,  in  full  life,  with  its  roots  and  about  seven 
feet  of  the  stem  entirely  encrusted  with  calca- 
reous matter. 

Near  to  the  foot  of  this  wall  of  travertine, 
which  was  more  than  forty  feet  high,  were 
openings  to  various  caverns — similar  to  some 
spacious  ones  I  had  entered  in  the  broad  calca- 
reous dam  higher  up  the  stream — with  numer- 
ous depending  stalactites,  resembling  filigree 
work  and  petrified  mosses,  the  fretted  appear- 
ance of  which  is  caused  by  the  spray  of  the 
cascade. 

Mineral  waters  of  this  character,  when  they 
pass  rapidly  over  shallow  or  stony  places,  or 
are  in  any  manner  thoroughly  exposed  to  the 
action  of  light  and  air,  are  most  prone  £o  deposit 
their  solid  constituents,  especially  lime— a  fact 
which  accounts  for  these  deposits.  When  this 
valley  was  formed,  the  stream  probably  passed 
over  a  gentle  rapid,  which,  breaking  the  water, 
would  cause  the  deposit ;  and  this  increasing  in 
height  until  the  volume  of  the  stream  was  di- 
minished to  its  present  width,  or  had  contracted 
in  consequence  of  the  accumulation  of  vegeta- 
ble and  alluvial  matter,  the  slaty  bottom,  being 
dammed  up,  would  be  converted  into  a  fertile 
valley  capable  of  producing  10,000  bushels  of 
maize  annually:  another  beautiful  instance  of 
the  beneficent  manner  in  which  provident  Nature 
operates  in  favour  of  man.  For  here  we  see 
the  springs  of  life  not  only  issuing  from  unfath- 
omable subterranean  depths  to  the  surface  of 
the  wilderness,  ready  to  restore  the  enfeebled 
constitution  of  the  suffering  Southerner,  but 
behold  them,  after  administering  to  his  wants, 
mechanically  engaged,  by  a  simple  process  in 
harmony  with  the  laws  of  nature,  in  producing 
the  means  even  of  sustaining  those  who  come 
here  to  seek  relief,  and  in  embellishing  every- 
thing around.  These  are  amongst  those  charm- 
ing lessons  we  receive  from  Nature,  which  dis- 
pose our  hearts  to  see  a  Divine  care  for  us  in 
everything. 

I  was  one  day  returning  to  my  cabin  with 
some  fine  specimens  of  travertine  rods  formed 
in  concentric  circles,  And  a  collection  of  beauti- 
fully encrusted  leaves  in  a  state  of  perfect  pre- 
servation, when  I  met  Mr.  Rogers,  the  landlord 
of  the  establishment,  an  old  inhabitant,  and  a 
very  intelligent  and  worthy  person.  He  as- 
sured me  that  some  years  ago,  when  hunting 
deer  in  the  hills,  he  had  seen  some  rocks,  at  a 
great  height  above  the  valley,  exactly  resem- 
bling them.  Being  a  man  of  good  judgment,  I 
proposed  to  him  to  accompany  me  to  the  place, 
and  he  cheerfully  assented.  Mounting  his  horse, 
and  accompanied  by  me  on  foot,  he  led  me  about 
six  miles  in  a  north  direction  ;  but  so  many 
years  had  elapsed  since  he  had  casually  observ- 
ed the  place,  and  the  deep  dells  and  hills, 
clothed  with  their  everlasting  woods,  resembled 
E 


each  other  so  much,  that  we  passed  the  whole 
morning  wandering  about,  climbing  one  hill 
and  descending  another,  till  I  began  to  think  he 
had  been  mistaken,  and  told  him  so.  He  would 
not  admit  this,  and  proposed  trying  another  hill- 
side before  we  returned,  called  Snakerun  Moun- 
tain, one  of  the  outliers  of  limestone,  of  which 
there  are  many  in  this  valley,  and  there  I  fol- 
lowed him.  Being  on  horseback,  and  in  ad- 
"vance  of  me,  I  heard  him  holla,  and  knew  from 
the  cheerful  sound  of  his  voice  that  the  game 
was  found.  As  he  approached,  I  saw  he  held 
in  his  hand  a  piece  of  rock,  and,  on  joining  him, 
I  immediately  recognised  it  for  a  piece  of  very 
ancient,  weathered  travertine.  He  now  con- 
ducted me  to  the  brow  of  a  hill,  at  least  350 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  Sweet  Springs,  and 
there,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  saw  a  huge  mural 
escarpment  of  ancient  travertine  skirting  the 
brow  of  the  hill,  with  innumerable  weather- 
worn remains  of  old  stalactites  ;  whilst  the 
body  of  the  escarpment  resembled  in  every  par- 
ticular the  recent  one  at  the  cascade,  abounding 
in  large  moulds  of  calcareous  matter,  which  had 
formerly  enclosed  logs  and  branches  of  trees. 
Trie  pendent  stalactites,  too,  were  constructed 
of  concentric  circles,  so  that  I  had  the  complete 
evidence  before  me  that  a  stream  of  mineral 
water  of  great  breadth,  loaded  with  carbonate 
of  lime,  had  for  a  length  of  time  passed  over 
this  brow,  and  formed  this  very  ancient  escarp- 
ment. The  surface  of  the  rock  contained  in 
many  parts  those  circular  perforations  made  by 
stones  and  gravel  kept  whirling  about  in  them 
by  eddies,  which,  are  vulgarly  called  pot-holes, 
and  which  are  to  be  seen  in  the  vicinity  of  all 
rapid  streams.  This  Snake-run  Mountain  stood, 
as  I  found  by  compass,  N.N.E.  by  E.  from  the 
Sweet  Springs ;  and  Peter's  Mountain,  in  an- 
other part,  where  I  got  a  peep  of  it  through  the 
trees,  bore  E.  of  the  place  where  I  stood. 

Here  was  an  extraordinary  phenomenon  ! — 
an  immense  deposit  of  travertine  lying  350  feet 
above  the  present  level  of  the  spring  from  which 
it  was  probably  derived  ;  for  it  seems  to  be 
susceptible  of  no  other  explanation  than  that 
the  level  of  the  valley  was,  at  some  remote 
period,  much  higher  than  it  is  now,  and  that  the 
Sweet  Springs  were  then  at  the  same  level 
with  this  ancient  travertine.  Before  the  valley 
was  scooped  out  by  the  currents  which  retired 
— perhaps  when  the  Alleghany  ridges  were  ele- 
vated— it  is  probable  that  the  whole  surface  of 
the  now  deeply  sulcated  region  was  of  one  con- 
tinuous level,  and  that  the  Sweet  Springs  came 
to  the  surface  through  the  limestone,  on  a  level 
with  this  ancient  escarpment :  but  when  the 
valley  was  swept  out,  the  hard,  compact  lime- 
stones resisted,  and  remained  behind,  as  we 
now  find  them,  in  the  calcareous  hummocks ; 
whilst  the  conglomerates,  shales,  and  sandstones 
were  broken  down  and  carried  away.  Since 
that  period,  the  softer  parts  of  the  formations 
occupying  that  part  of  the  valley  where  the 
springs  now  are  have  been  gradually  worn 
down,  permitting  the  stream  to  take  a  new 
direction,  and  make  new  deposits  ;  whilst  the 
old  travertine  remains  a  monument  of  the  an- 
cient level  of  the  country,  and  one  of  the  strong- 
est geological  proofs  of  the  extraordinary  changes, 
that  have  been  effected  in  the  general  surface. 

These  mountainous  countries  have  indeed 


34 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


undergone  great  cnanges.  I  have  frequently 
found  fragments  of  conglomerate  sandstone  (old 
red)  abounding  on  the  slopes  and  in  the  valleysl 
together  with  slabs  and  pieces  of  encrinital 
limestone,  once,  no  doubt,  at  the  same  level 
with  the  beds  near  the  summit  of  White  Rock, 
near  the  White  Sulphur.  The  conglomerates, 
too,  in  this  district,  appear  to  have  been  in  situ 
above  the  highest  existing  summits  of  this  re- 
gion, for  I  have  repeatedly  found  bouldered  frag- 
ments of  them  on  their  tops  ;  and  near  Bedford, 
in  Pennsylvania,  the  same  conglomerates  are 
still  found  in  place  on  the  sandstones  of  the 
Backbone  ridge. 

The  general  order  of  the  strata  in  this  part  of 
the  country  is  but  a  repetition  of  the  ordinary 
succession  of  slates,  limestones,  and  sand- 
stones, the  last  of  which  are  occasionally  very 
ferruginous.  Sometimes  the  surface  of  the  sum- 
mits consists  of  slates,  at  other  times  of  sand- 
stones ;  the  modifications  which  the  ridges  have 
received  appearing  to  be  in  proportion  to  the  vi- 
olence of  the  movement  which  has  elevated 
them,  and  the  subsequent  action  of  the  retiring 
waters.  Limestones  generally  form  the  bottom 
of  the  valleys,  but  where  the  ridges  have  taken 
the  anticlinical  form  and  have  been  dislocated, 
the  limestones  are  often  found  on  their  flanks. 
About  five  miles  to  the  N.W.  of  Crow's,  I  found 
anthracite  coal  cropping  out  in  a  ferruginous 
sandstone,  on  the  left  bank  of  a  stream  called 
Fork  Run,  which  drains  a  small  valley  :  the 
strike  of  the  coal,  which  contained  a  great  deal 
of  sulphuret  of  iron,  was  the  same  as  that  of 
the  ridges,  N.N.E.  and  S.S.W.  This  bed  of 
anthracite  had  never  been  disturbed,  being  com- 
pletely covered  under  the  flat  land  of  the  valley, 
except  where  the  stream  has  laid  it  bare.  The 
coal  seems  to  follow  the  flexure  of  the  hills,  as 
in  the  Alleghany  ridges  of  Pennsylvania,  a  fact 
which  I  saw  more  clearly  at  another  locality  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Sweet  Springs  Mountain, 
not  far  from*  a  Mr.  Wiley's.  The  ferruginous 
beds  at  the  top  of  the  Sweet  Springs  Mountain 
are  sometimes  very  rich,  and  would  probably 
give  from  50  to  60  per  cent  of  iron.  The  ridges 
about  here  are  well  wooded,  and  have  generally 
a  good  soil  to  the  top,  capable  of  making  excel- 
lent grazing  land.  With  iron,  and  coal  and 
limestone  to  flux  it,  I  see  no  impediment  to  a 
thriving  population  establishing  itself  here  here- 
after. Worse  land,  without  these  valuable 
minerals,  will  sell  for  25  dollars  an  acre  in  many 
parts  of  the  State  of  New  York,  whilst  many  of 
these  fresh  and  fertile  lands  are  offered,  as  I  am 
informed,  at  one  cent  an  acre,  to  avoid  the  pay- 
ment of  taxes.  The  fine  bottom  land,  however, 
of  the  Sweet  Springs  is  not  to  be  purchased  at 
that  rate  ;  a  great  portion  of  it  is  already  culti- 
vated, and  produces  heavy  crops  of  corn,  being 
composed  for  many  feet  of  dark-coloured  vege- 
table matter  mixed  up  with  the  fragments  of  old 
land-shells,  helix,  paludina,  anculotus,  and  a 
prodigious  quantity  of  planorbis,  in  consequence 
of  the  presence  of  carbonate  of  lime.  They 
were  ditching  a  part  of  this  fat  land  whilst  I  was 
there,  which  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  making 
a  collection  of  these  shells  :  amongst  other 
things,  I  saw  them  take  out  from  a  depth  of  about 
six  feet  the  cranium  of  an  ox,  which  turned  out 
upon  -inspection  to  be  the  skull  of  one  those  buf- 
faloes which  inhabited  the  country  before  it  was 


settled  by  the  whites.  It  is  not  remarkable 
that  their  bones  should  be  found  in  such  a  situ- 
ation, as  they  usually  congregate  in  places 
where  salt  springs  and  wild  grass  are  to  be  ob- 
tained ;  indeed  the  buffalo  must  have  frequented 
this  valley  within  the  memory  of  man,  for  there 
is  an  aged  man  near  the  White  Sulphur  who- 
asserts  that  he  has  killed  several  animals  of 
that  race  at  the  mineral  Spring  there. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Depart  on  foot  across  the  Mountains  to  Fincastle— Decidn- 
ous  and  evergreen  Trees  alternating  with  the  Soil— Fin- 
castle,  a  Virginia  Town— Mr.  Jefferson  the  Confucius  of" 
the  United  States— Free-thinking  and  Universal  Suffrage 
his  grand  Nostrums  for  good  Government — A  patriotic 
proposition  to  blow  Virginia  "  sky-high"  to  save  its  Con- 
stitution—Botetourt  Springs — A  Camp  of  Negro  Slave 
drivers — The  Coffle  of  Slaves  crosses  New  River  man- 
acled and  fettered— The  Negro  drivers  in  mourning. 
HAVING  looked  at  the  most  interesting  objects- 
in  this  part  of  the  country,  and  confided  my 
wife  to  the  care  of  some  friends,  my  son  and 
myseif,  having  still  an  arduous  tour  before  us 
as  far  as  the  Mexican  frontier,  set  off  on  foot  at 
an  early  hour  on  September  3rd,  for  Fincastle, 
distant  29  miles,  forwarding  our  luggage  by  the 
stage.  It  was  a  beautiful  morning,  and  we 
soon  got  to  the  south  side  of  Peter's  Mountain. 
Here,  in  a  small  valley,  on  the  property  of  Mr. 
Brooke,  and  at  the  bottom  of  another  ridge 
called  Pott's  Mountain,  I  observed  a  strong  bed' 
of  anthracite  coal,  bearing  N.N.E. ;  it  was  a 
promising-looking  deposit  which  had  not  been 
disturbed,  and  therefore  did  not  disclose  the 
thickness  of  the  vein.  The  limestone  lies  very 
near  to  it,  and  not  far  distant  there  was  a  min- 
eral spring  of  sulphuretted  hydrogen  rising 
through  a  pyritous  slate.  Farther  to  the  south, 
there  is  a  lofty  hummock,  or  hill,  exceedingly 
steep,  entirely  composed  of  rich  iron-stone, 
which  we  left  the  road  to  examine.  Having 
rather  fatigued  ourselves  here,  we  left  the  place 
and  began  the  ascent  of  Pott's  Mountain,  up 
which  the  road  ran  for  four  tedious  miles  to  the 
top,  near  which  we  found  a  delicious  spring  of 
cool  water  with  a  large  trough  to  receive,  it,  and 
here  we  washed  and  refreshed  ourselves.  The 
view  from  the  summit  is  very  extensive,  pre- 
senting many  extensive  ridges  on  each  side 
densely  covered  with  the  foliage  of  the  unvary- 
ing forest,  but  without  a  vestige  of  the  labour  of 
man,  except  at  the'  very  top  of  the  mountain, 
where,  owing  to  there  being  an  extensive  de- 
posit of  clay,  a  small  pottery  has  been  estab- 
lished for  the  purpose  of  manufacturingearthen- 
ware.  As  we  descended  the  mountain  on  the 
other  side,  we  met  with  numerous  springs 
coming  out  from  beneath  the  clay,  and  at  the 
foot  of  the  ridge  we  came  to  a  fertile  piece  of 
land  where  a  Mr.  Scott  kept  a  small  tavern. 
From  hence  we  proceeded  to  Craig's  Creek, 
which  we  reached  long  after  sunset.  Usually 
at  such  places  there  is  a  passing  place  made  of 
squared  timber  for  foot  passengers,  but  here  we 
could  find  none,  and  in  the  exceedingly  faint 
starlight  that  disclosed  things  but  imperfectly, 
we  were  quite  uncertain  which  was  the  ford. 
There  was  no  resource,  however,  but  trying,  so 
down  we  sat  on  the  beach  and'Stripped  to'it, 
and  entered  the  stream  which  was  about  150 
feet  wide.  What  had  appeared  at  first  to  me- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


35 


nace  us  with  embarrassment  now  became  a 
source  of  the  greatest  satisfaction,  the  tempera- 
ture af  the  water  being,  so  very  agreeable  as  to 
refresh  our  feet  exceedingly,  which  were  some- 
what bruised  and  chafed.  Being  always  pro- 
vided with  towels  for  emergencies  of  this  kind, 
we  sat  down  very  cheerfully  to  refresh  our- 
selves as  soon  as  we  had  reached  the  other 
side,  and  then  pursued  our  walk  for  an  hour, 
which  brought  us  to  a  tavern  kept  by  a  person 
of  the  name  of  Price,  where  we  got  some  re 
freshment  and  were  glad  to  repose  ourselves 
after  an  unceasing  tramp  by  a  tolerable  night's 
rest.  We  had  walked  25  miles  since  eleven  in 
the  morning,  over  a  very  rough  country. 

In  the  morning  I  examined  a  sulphuretted 
spring  near  the  house,  and  ad  vised  the  proprieto 
to  divert  the  course  of  a  brook  which  ran  too 
near  it,  for,  being  at  a  higher  level,  the  waters 
of  the  brook  mixed  themselves  with  those  of  the 
spring,  and  not  only  diluted  it,  but  brought  its 
temperature  down  to  52°.  After  breakfast  we 
ascended  Caldwell's  Mountain,  another  emi- 
nence which  separated  us  from  the  valley  in 
which  the  town  of  Fincastle  is  built,  and  which 
is  a  continuation  of  the  great  limestone  valley 
running  west  from  Harper's-ferry  :  in  the  ferru 
ginous  slaty  sandstones  towards  the  top,  we 
found  large  elliptical  nodules  of  ironstone  embed- 
ded in  concentric  circles,  some  of  which  were 
three  feet  long  and  twelve  inches  broad.  On 
descending  the  mountain  we  took  a  sketch  of 
some  conical  peaks  on  the  summit  of  an  adja- 
cent ridge,  which  were  separated  from  each 
other  by  deep  sulcated  depressions  coming  down 
its  side  ;  these  showed  a  bright  green  foliage  of 
hickory,  maple,  chestnut,  and  other  deciduous 
trees,  whilst  the  ribs  of  the  ridge  on  each  side 
of  the  depressions  showed  nothing  but  dark 
green  evergreens  of  the  fir  kind.  The  clouds 
partially  covering  the  cones  of  these  peaks 
whilst  the  sun  was  gleaming  upon  their  sides, 
they  made  an  exceedingly  pretty  and  rather  un- 
common picture,  for  the  contrast  between  the 
foliage  of  the  evergreens  and  the  summer-leav- 
ed trees — occasioned,  I  supposed,  by  a  curious 
alternation  of  slate  and  sandstone — was  very 
strong.  Here  we  sprung  the  only  head  of  game 
we  saw  during  the  walk  ;  a  fine  large  cock 
phtasant  (tetrao  cupido),  as  they  are  called  here, 
with  his  crest  and  whiskers  erect,  was  strutting 
about  in  a  wild  way  and  clucking  like  a  hen. 
After  observing  for  a  time  his  fantastic  move- 
ments, which  resembled  those  of  a  pouter 
pigeon,  with  great  pleasure,  we  alarmed  him, 
and  he  rose  with  a  loud  cuck-a-ra-ra  voice  and 
a  strong  wing,  arid  flew  across  the  dell  with 
great  velocity.  This  pleasing  incident  relieved 
the  solitude  of  the  scene  very  agreeably.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  mountain  we  came  upon  the 
limestone  again,  and  on  our  approach  to  Fincas- 
tle we  passed  an  opulent-looking  plantation 
with  a  very  respectable  mansion-house,  sur- 
rounded with  a  stout  limestone  wall.  As  this 
had  been  taken  in  blocks  from  a  quarry  in  the 
neighbourhood,  I  examined  it,  and  found  that  it 
contained  some  fine  specimens  of  producta. 

Fincastle  is  a  monument  of  colonial  times, 

taking  its  name  from  one  of  the  titles  of  Lord 

n.ore,  who  was  Governor  of  Virginia  when 

the  rebellion   broke  out   there  in    1775      The 

principal  street  of  this  straggling  village  is  very 


j  narrow,  but  the  place  contains  some  respecta- 
ble families,  and  just  at  this  period  the  court  of 
justice  was  sitting,  and  which  occasioned  a  great 
bustle  of  lawyers  and  country-people.  To  judge 
from  appearances  the  science  of  law  seemed  to 
be  a  litlle  more  cultivated  than  any  other  in  Vir- 
ginia ;  for,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  country 
gentlemen  of  the  ancient  families,  all  the  men 
of  any  influence  in  the  State  appear  to  be  law- 
yers. They  fill  the  State  legislature  and  direct 
all  its  proceedings  ;  they  represent  the  State  in 
Congress,  and  take  their  full  share  there  of  all 
the  talking  and  all  the  political  intriguing  that  is 
going  on  ;  and  as  it  occurs  in  most  of  the  other 
States,  the  political  parties  are  frequently  chang- 
ing their  ground  as  well  as  their  designation,  to 
suit  the  ''  cry"  under  which  their  candidates  are 
brought  forward  ;  so  that  whilst  they  all  profess 
to  be  most  religiously  devoted  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  Constitution  of  Virginia,  they  have 
forty  different  ways  of  interpreting  it,  each  of 
which  is  most  stoutly  maintained  to  be  the 
true  exposition  of  the  Jeffersonian  doctrines.  It 
is  well  known  to  those  who  have  travelled  a 
great  deal  in  the  United  States,  that  Virginia  is 
one  of  the  most  agreeable  parts  of  the  Union, 
that  there  are  many  persons  in  it  who  eminently 
deserve  the  character  of  gentlemen,  and  that 
Virginians  are,  generally  speaking,  a  lively  and 
ingenious  people,  full  of  kind  attentions  to  those 
who  go  amongst  them.  In  the  days  of  Wash- 
ington and  the  men  of  his  time,  the  political 
topics  of  the  day  might  be  comprehended  with- 
out much  difficulty,  for  although  men  of  sense 
and  character  differed  about  the  local  applica- 
tion of  measures,  yet  they  were  united  in  the 
support  of  practically  good  and  intelligible  prin- 
ciples of  government :  but  the  complexity  of 
political  opinions  in  modern  times  is  so  great, 
that  a  traveller  who  is  merely  passing  through 
the  State,  and  has  not  paid  particular  attention 
to  Virginian  politics,  is' quite  baffled  in  the  at- 
tempt to  understand  what  he  reads  or  what  he 
hears. 

The  principal  cause  of  this  degeneracy  from 
the  straightforward  and  simple  principles  of  the 
old  school,  is  fairly  attributable  to  that  eminent 
person  who  is  considered  by  many  of  his  admi- 
rers in  America  and  in  Europe  to  be  the  Confu- 
cius of  the  United  States.  Now  whether  this 
parallel  is  flattering  to  the  memory  of  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson or  not,  it  would  certainly  seem  to  be  true 
that  he  believed,  as  that  antique  philosopher  did, 
that  little  was  wanting  to  produce  good  govern- 
ment amongst  mankind  beyond  a  string  of  well- 
concocted  abstract  maxims  ;  he  therefore  be- 
queathed to  his  countrymen  a  set  of  opinions 
that  were  quite  independent  of  anything  taught 
by  the  Christian  religion,  and  which  to  a  great 
extent  he  had  derived,  during  ftjs  residence  "*" 
Paris  at  the  period  of  the  French  Revolution" 
from  those  Gallic  philosophers  who,  dissatisfied 
with  the  condition  of  man  as  it  develops  itself 
through  the  various  degrees  of  intellect,  temper, 
and  physical  power  with  which  Providence  has 
endowed  him,  attempted  to  bring  all  to  a  philan- 
thropic equality  by  the  lively  action  of  the  guil- 
'otine. 

Before  Mr.  Jefferson's  time  Virginia  was  a 
lappy  English  colony,  a  better  copy  of  the  mo- 
ther-country than  any  of  the  other  colonies. 
She  had  numerous  independent,  country  gentle- 


36 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


men,  whose  fathers,  as  the  custom  of  the  day 
was,  had  sent  their  sons  "home"  to  be  educated 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  she  had  an  es- 
tablished endowed  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 
It  was  Mr.  Jefferson  who  uprooted  that  church, 
and  confiscated  the  glebes  and  parsonages. 
His  maxim  was  "  to  let  religion  take  care  of  it- 
self," never  attending  to  the  obvious  necessity 
of  cherishing  religion  for  the  two  important  pur- 
poses of  consoling  the  poor  and  ignorant,  and 
giving  a  Christian  and  wise  direction  to  the 
power  of  the  rich.  Those  grievances  which 
the  colonists  had  just  reason  to  complain  of 
from  the  British  government,  found  in  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson an  active  exponent ;  he  soon  became  the 
leading  patriot  in  his  native  State,  and  drew  in 
many  gentlemen,  who  disliked  the  man,  to  sup- 
port his  measures.  It  was  but  a  short  time, 
however,  which  ejapsed  after  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  independence  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  establishment  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, before  he  turned  his  attention  to  over- 
throwing the  influence  of  the  gentlemen  who, 
with  General  Washigton  at  their  head,  had  uni- 
ted with  him  in  their  opposition  to  the  mother- 
country,  and  he  was  successful. 

In  exchange  for  a  Federal  Government  rest- 
ing for  its  maintenance  upon  character  and  pro- 
perty, he  succeeded  in  substituting  one  based 
upon  free  thinking  and  universal  suffrage,  two 
grand  incarnations  of  fancied  virtue  totally  with- 
out the  principles  they  stood  in  the  place  of. 
Hence  the  necessity  of  all  his  political  dogmas 
and  maxims,  to  reconcile  absurdities,  most  of 
•which,  like  many  other  oracles,  can  be  made  to 
assume  every  possible  phase  by  acute  and  inge- 
nious persons,  when  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  the 
exposure  of  their  intrinsic  worthlessness. 

I  was  exceedingly  amused  by  the  conversa- 
tion at  the  public  table  of  the  inn  where  we  stop- 
ped, at  which  a  great  number  of  country  law- 
yers were  assembled,  most  of  whom  were  disci- 
ples of  Mr.  Jefferson.  Nothing  could  exceed  the 
extraordinary  propositions  which  were  brought 
forward  and  warmly  defended  by  metaphysical 
subtleties  of  the  wildest  character.  Every  dis- 
putant asserted  that  the  argument  of  his  adver- 
sary was  utterly  subversive  of  the  Constitution  ; 
so  that  if  the  opinion  of  any  one  of  them  had 
been  admitted  to  be  founded  on  reason,  it  was 
clear  that  it  would  be  at  the  expense  of  the  Con 
stitution.  A  grave  looking  gentleman,  who, 
from  his  conversation,  I  took  for  a  Federalist 
of  the  Washington  school,  made  a  quiet  obser- 
vation of  that  kind,  which  brought  out  one  of 
the  most  loquacious  disputants;  thumping  his 
Sand  upon  the  table,  he  exclaimed  with  energy, 
".' TJy  *  *  *,  before  I'd  let  any  inan  hurt  the  Con- 
stitution a'  hair's  breadth,  I'd  blow  old  Virginia 
sky-high  !"  This  plan  of  averting  dangers  from 
the  Constitution  by  a  heroic  explosion  of  the 
Commonwealth  itse'K,  is  an  instructive  illustra- 
tion of  the  practical  tendency  of  Jeffersonian 
philosophy  ;  for  it  cannot  but  be  highly  encour- 
aging to  the  patriots  of  all  countries  who  culti- 
vate the  subtleties  of  metaphysical  equality  and 
universal  suffrage,  to  discern  in  them  a  potency 
which,  up  to  the  present  times,  has  not  been 
equalled  even  by  gunpowder. 

Finding  it  impossible  to  accomplish  the  whole 
of  our  proposed  journey  on  foot,  and  being  now 
upon  a  road  where  the  mail  ran,  we  booked 


ourselves  in  the  stage-coach,  and  started  the 
next  morning  over  an  execrable  road  of  knobby 
limestone,  stopping  a  short  time  at  Botetourt 
Springs,  another  name  that  reminded  me  of  co- 
lonial times.  Here  there  is  a  mineral  water  of 
sulphuretted  hydrogen,  not  much  dissimilar  to 
that  of  the  White  Sulphur.  The  establishment, 
when  compared  with  the  other  Virginia  springs 
I  have  visited,  looks  very  respectable  ;  the 
buildings,  which  are  wooden  cabins  elsewhere, 
are  well  constructed  of  brick,  and  placed  in  a 
neat  quadrangle,  at  the  end  of  which  is  the  ho- 
tel, containing  a  large  hall,  with  an  excellent 
parlour  well  furnished  ;  every  thing  at  the  place 
looked  comfortable,  but  there  were  only  three  vi- 
sitors there.  A  mile  or  two  from  these  springs 
is  Tinker's  Mountain,  which  has  a  singularly 
symmetrical  saddle-formed  shape.  Farther  on 
wecame  to  a  small  settlement  called  Big  Springs, 
one  of  those  immense  natural  basins  of  pure  wa- 
ter not  uncommon  in  limestone  districts,  and 
which  seem  to  abound  in  this  well-watered 
country.  We  next  ascended  to  a  poor  sort  of 
town  called  Christianburgh,  forty-eight  miles 
from  Fincastle,  on  the  way  to  which  we  crossed 
several  branches  of  the  Roanoke  River,  which 
empties  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

Here  we  slept,  and  departing  very  early  in 
the  morning,  found  ourselves  somewhat  unex- 
pectedly upon  an  extensive  table-land,  not  at  all 
cut  up  by  ridges  and  valleys.  This  continues 
to  New  River,  one  of  the  tributaries  of  the  Ka- 
nawha,  which  empties  into  the  Ohio.  We 
found  the  descent  to  this  stream  rather  rapid, 
and  the  river  broader  than  any  we  had  passed, 
being  about  200  yards  wide.  On  this  water- 
shed the  waters  which  flow  into  the  Atlantic, 
and  those  which  flow  iftto  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
have  their  sources,  in  some  places  very  near  to 
each  other. 

Just  as  we  reached  New  River,  in  the  early 
grey  of  the  morning,  we  came  up  with  a  singu- 
lar spectacle,  the  most  striking  one  of  the  kind 
I  have  ever  witnessed.  It  was  a  camp  of  negro 
slave-drivers,  just  packing  up  to  start ;  they 
had  about  three  hundred  slaves  with  them,  who 
had  bivouacked  the  preceding  night  in  chains  in 
the  woods  ;  these  they  were  conducting  to  Nat- 
chez, upon  the  Mississippi  River,  to  work  upon 
the  sugar  plantations  in  Louisiana.  It  resem- 
bled one  of  those  coffles  of  slaves  spoken  of 
by  Mungo  Park,  except  that  they  Had  a  caravan 
of  nine  waggons  and  single-horse  carriages,  for 
the  purpose  of  conducting  the  white  people,  and 
any  of  the  blacks  that  should  fall  lame,  to  which 
they  were  now  putting  the  horses  to  pursue 
their  march.  The  female  slaves  were,  some 
of  them,  sitting  on  logs  of  wood,  whilst  others 
were  standing,  and  a  great  many  little  black 
children  were  warming  themselves  at  the  fires 
of  the  bivouac.  In  front  of  them  all,  and  pre- 
pared for  the  march,  stood,  in  double  files,  about 
two  hundred  male  slaves,  manacled  and  chained 
to  each  other.  I  had  never  seen  so  revolting  a 
sight  before  !  Black  men  in  fetters,  torn  from 
the  lands  where  they  were  born,  from  the  ties 
they  had  formed,  and  from  the  comparatively 
easy  condition  which  agricultural  labour  affords, 
and  driven  by  white  men,  with  liberty  and  equal- 
ity in  their  mouths,  to  a  distant  and  unhealthy- 
country,  to  perish  in  the  sugar-mills  of  Louisi- 
ana, where  the  duration  of  life  for  a  sugar-mill 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


37 


slave  does  not  exceed  seven  years  !  To  make 
this  spectacle  still  more  disgusting  and  hideous, 
some  of  the  principal  white  slave-drivers,  who 
were  tolerably  well  dressed,  and  had  broad- 
brimmed  white  hats  on,  with  black  crape  round 
them,  were  standing  near,  laughing  and  smoking 
cigars. 

Whether  these  sentimental  speculators  were, 
or  were  not — in  accordance  with  the  language 
of  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence 
— in  mourning  "  from  a  decent  respect  for  the 
opinions  of  mankind,"  or  foV  their  own  callous 
inhuman  lives,  I  could  not  but  he  struck  with 
the  monstrous  absurdity  of  such  fellows  putting 
on  any  symbol  of  sorrow  whilst  engaged  in  the 
exercise  of  such  a  horrid  trade;  so  wishing 
them  in  my  heart  all  manner  of  evil  to  endure, 
as  long  as  there  was  a  bit  of  crape  to  be  obtain- 
ed, we  drove  on,  and  having  forded  the  river  in 
a  flat-bottomed  boat,  drew  up  on  the  road, 
where  I  persuaded  the  driver  to  wait  until  we 
had  witnessed  the  crossing  of  the  river  by  the 
"gang,"  as  it  was  called. 

It  was  an  interesting,  but  a  melancholy  spec- 
tacle, to  see  them  effect  the  passage  of  the  riv- 
er :  first,  a  man  on  horseback  selected  a  shallow 
place  in  the  ford  for  the  male  slaves  ;  then  fol- 
lowed a  waggon  and  four  horses,  attended  by 
another  man  on  horseback.  The  other  wag- 
gons contained  the  children  and  some  that  were 
lame,  whilst  the  scows,  or  flat-boats,  crossed 
the  women  and  some  of  the  people  belonging  to 
the  caravan.  There  was  much  method  and 
vigilance  observed,  for  this  was  one  of  the  sit- 
uations where  the  gangs — always  watchful  to 
obtain  their  liberty — often  show  a  disposition  to 
mutiny,  knowing  that  if  one  or  two  of  them 
could  wrench  their  manacles  off,  they  could 
soon  free  the  rest,  and  either  disperse  them- 
selves or  overpower  and  slay  their  sordid  keep- 
ers, and  fly  to  the  Free  States.  The  slave- 
drivers,  aware  of  this  disposition  in  the  unfor- 
tanate  negroes,  endeavour  to  mitigate  their  dis- 
content by  feeding  them  well  on  the  march,  and 
by  encouraging  them  losing  "  Old  Virginia  nev- 
er tire,"  to  the  banjo. 

The  poor  negro  slave  is  naturally  a  cheerful, 
laughing  animal,  and  even  when  driven  through 
the  wilderness  in  chains,  if  he  is  well  fed  and 
kindly  treated,  is  seldom  melancholy  ;  for  his 
thoughts  have  not  been  taught  to  stray  to  the 
future,  and  his  condition  is  so  degraded,  that  if 
the  food  and  warmth  his  desires  are  limited  to 
are  secured  to  him,  he  is  singularly  docile.  It 
is  only  when  he  is  ill-treated  and  roused  to  des- 
peration, that  his  vindictive  and  savage  nature 
breaks  out.*  But  these  gangs  are  accompanied 


*  This  practice  of  driving  gangs  of  slaves  through  the 
country  to  the  southern  markets  has  been  to  a  great  ex- 
tent discontinued  on  account  of  the  dangers  and  inconve- 
niences it  is  unavoidably  subject  to :  for  the  drivers  are 
not  all  equally  prudent  and  vigilant ;  often  outraging  the 
slaves  by  brutal  treatment,  and  then  trusting  too  implicitly 
to  their  apparent  hiunility.  Watching  their  opportunity, 
the  slaves  have  sometimes  overpowered  them,  put  them 
to  death,  and  dispersed  themselves.  The  attention  of 
these  speculators  in  men  has  thus  become  turned  to  the 
expediency  of  embarking  them  at  some  port  in  one  of  the 
slave-holding  states,  and  sending  them  to  New  Orleans 
by  sea. 

This  scheme,  however,  as  far  as  regards  the  speculators, 
seetns  to  be  obnoxious  to  the  same  objection  that  applies 
to  marching  them  by  land,  and  amounts,  in  fact,  to  the 
introduction  of  the  domestic  slave-trade  of  the  United 
States  upon  the  great  highway  of  nations.  In  the  case 


by  other  negroes  trained  by  the  slave-dealers  to 
drive  the  rest,  whom  they  amuse  by  lively  sto- 
ries, boasting  of  the  fine  warm  climate  they  are 
going  to,  and  of  the  oranges  and  sugar  which, 
are  there  to  be  had  for  nothing :  in  proportion 
as  they  recede  from  the  Free  States,  the  danger 
of  revolt  diminishes,  for  in  the  Southern  Slave- 
States  all  men  have  an  interest  in  protecting 
this  infernal  trade  of  slave-driving,  which,  to 
the  negro,  is. a  greater  curse  than  slavery  itself, 
since  it  too  often  dissevers  for  ever  those  affect- 
ing natural  ties  which  even  a  slave  can  form, 
by  tearing,  without  an  instant's  notice,  the  hus- 
band from  the  wife,  and  the  children  from  their 
parents ;  sending  the  one  to  the  sugar  planta- 
tions of  Louisiana,  another  to  the  cotton-lands 
of  Arkansas,  and  the  rest  to  Texas.t 


of  the  Creole,  slave-transport,  which  occasioned  so  much 
excitement  in  the  United  States,  and  led  to  a  protracted 
negotiation  between  the  Federal  Government  and  the 
Government  of  Great  Britain,  the  cargo  of  slaves 'over- 
powered their  keepers  whilst  on  the  voyage,  and  took 
refuge  in  a  British  dependency.  They  were  reclaimed  as 
property ;  but  as  our  laws  admit  of  no  property  in  human 
beings,  the  legality  of  the  claim  was  denied,  and  the  denial 
was  acquiesced  in.  There  seems  to  be  no  distinction,  in 
the  eyes  of  humanity,  between  chaining  and  transporting 
slaves  by  land  or  by  sea,  and  any  European  government 
that  would  recognise  claims  for  aid  or  compensation, 
founded  upon  the  inability  of  slave-drivers  to  protect  their 
interests  upon  the  high  seas,  although  when  bound  from 
one  American  port  to  another,  would  substantially  give 
countenance  to  the  slave-trade. 

t  One  day,  in  Washington,  whilst  taking  a  hasty  dinner 
preparatory  to  a  journey,  I  received  a  letter  from  a  benevo- 
lent lady — which  letter  I  have  preserved — entreating  me  in 
the  most  pressing  terms  to  endeavour  to  procure  the  en- 
largement of  a  slave  called  Manuel,  who  had  been  her 
servant.  She  stated  that  he  had  been  decoyed  to  a  public 
slave-depot  in  the  skirts  of  the  city,  had  been  seized  and 
detained  there,  and  was  going  to  be  sold  into  the  Southern 
States,  and  that  the  delay  of  an  hour  perhaps  would  be 
too  late  for  interference.  This  poor  fellow  was  the  prop- 
erty of  the  principal  hotel-keeper  in  the  place,  a  person 
called  Q  *****  ;  who,  when  the  Congress  was  not  in 
session,  and  he  had  little  or  no  occupation  for  his  slaves, 
was  in  the  habit  of  hiring  them  out  to  families  by  the 
month,  as  domestic  servants.  This  Manuel,  who  was 
about  twenty-six  years  old,  had  belonged  to  his  present 
master  a  great  many  years,  was  very  useful  in  the  hotel, 
and  had  married  a  female  slave  born  in  G  *  *  *  *  *Ts  house, 
by  whom  he  had  four  or  five  little  children.  I  had  ob- 
served him  when  visiting  at  this  lady's,  and  was  struck 
with  his  pleasing  manners.  She  informed  me  at  the  time 
that  he  was  in  everything  exemplary  in  his  conduct,  and 
that  on  Sundays  he  always  went  to  church  with  his  wife 
and  children,  whom  he  was  training  up  in  the  most  admi- 
rable manner. 

Inconvenient  in  many  respects  as  it  was  for  me  to  inter- 
fere at  that  time  in  a  matter  of  this  kind,  I  felt  that  I  should 
not  be  satisfied  with  myself  if  I  disregarded  her  entreaties, 
and,  therefore,  determined  instantly  to  go  to  this  slave- 
depot.  In  a  few  minutes  a  carriage  took  me  to  a  large 
brick  edifice  in  the  suburbs,  and  being  directed  to  a  room 
where  the  superintendent  was,  I  went  there',  and  found 
that  it  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  jail  that  I  was  in  ; 
manacles,  fetters,  and  all  sorts  of  ofiensive  things  were 
lying  about,  and  on  casting  a  look  at  the  hard  features  of 
the  superintendent,  I  saw  at  once  that  he  was  the  jail- 
keeper.  Informing  him  that  I  wished  to  see  a  coloured 
man  of  the  name  of  Manuel,  he  took  up  a  ponderous  key 
and  conducted  me  to  a  door  with  chains  drawn  across  it, 
and,  unbarring  and  unlocking  it,  he  called  the  poor  fellow, 
whom  I  immediately  recognised.  This  door  opened  into 
a  very  spacious  prison,  where  several  coloured  people 
were  walking  about,  but  without  manacles ;  and  stepping 
into  it,  I  asked  Manuel  what  had  happened.  He  then 
told  me  the  following  story  : 

His  master  had  sent  him  to  the  depot  with  a  message  to 
the  superintendent,  who,  on  his  arrival,  locked  him  in  the 
prison.  Towards  evening  his  master  told  his  wife  that  he 
was  surprised  Manuel  had  not  returned,  and  she  had  bet- 
ter take  the  children  a  walk  there  to  see  what  was  the 
matter.  Thus  were  these  poor  unsuspecting  people  all 
entrapped.  Manuel  on  the  arrival  of  his  wife  and  family 
v;nv  into  the  plot  he  had  been  the  victim  of,  and  coupling 
it  with  some  other  circumstances  that  had  not  struck  him 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


Revolting  as  all  these  atrocious  practices  are, 
still  this  "Institution" — a  term  with  which 
some  of  the  American  statesmen  dignify  slavery 
and  the  circumstances  inherent  to  it — as  it  ex- 
ists in  the  United  States,  does  not  appear  to  me 
to  have  been  fairly  placed  before  the  judgment 
of  mankind  by  any  of  those  who  have  written 
concerning  it.  All  Christian  men  must  unite  in 
the  wish  that  slavery  was  extinguished  in  every 
part  of  the  world,  and  from  my  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  sentiments  of  many  of  the  leading 
gentlemen  in  the  Southern  States,  I  am  persua- 
ded that  they  look  to  the  ultimate  abolition  of 
slavery  with  satisfaction.  Mr.  Madison,  the 
Ex-President,  with  whom  I  have  often  conversed 
freely  on  this  subject,  has  told  me  more  than 
once  that  he  could  not  die  in  peace  if  he  be- 
lieved that  so  great  a  disgrace  to  his  country  was 
not  to  be  blotted  out  some  day  or  other.  He 
once  informed  me  that  he  had  assembled  all  his 
slaves — and  they  were  numerous — and  offered 
to  manumit  them  immediately ;  but  they  in- 
stantly declined  it,  alleging  that  they  had  been 
born  on  his  estate,  had  always  been  provided 
for  by  him  with  raiment  and  food,  in  sickness 
and  in  health,  and  if  they  were  made  free  they 
would  have  no  home  to  go  to,  and  no  friend  to 
protect  or  care  for  them.  They  preferred,  there- 
fore, to  live  and  die  as  his  slaves,  who  had  ever 
been  a  kind  master  to  them.  This,  rro  doubt, 
is  the  situation  of  many  humane,  right-thinking 
proprietors  in  the  Southern  States ;  they  have 
inherited  valuable  plantations  with  the  negroes 
born  upon  them,  and  these  look  up  to  their  mas- 
ter as  the  only  friend  they  have  on  earth.  The 
most  zealous,  therefore,  of  the  Abolitionists  of 
the  Free  States,  when  they  denounce  slavery, 
and  call  for  its  immediate  abolition,  overlook  the 
conditions  upon  which  alone  it  could  be  effect- 
ed. They  neither  propose  to  provide  a  home 
for  the  slaves  when  they  are  manumitted,  nor  a 
compensation  to  their  proprietors.  Without 
slaves  the  plantations  would  be  worthless  :  there 
are  no  white  men  to  cultivate  them  ;  the  newly- 
freed  and  improvident  negroes  could  not  be 
made  available,  and  there  would  be  no  purcha- 


at  the  time,  now  perceived  that  his  master,  wanting  to 
raise  a  sum  of  money,  had  sold  them  all.  The  poor  fel- 
low brought  his  wife  and  neat  little  children  to  me  •  she 
•was  a  modest,  well-dressed  woman,  appeared  very  wretch- 
ed at  the  idea  of  being  sold  away  from  her  husband  and 
her  children,  and  implored  me  most  earnestly  not  to  leave 
them  there.  On  seeing  me,  they  had  conceived  the  hope 
that  I  had  come  to  buy  them  all.  to  prevent  their  being 
separated,  and  they  both  protested  in  the  most  vehement 
and  affecting  way  that  they  would  be  faithful  to  me  until 
death.  I  told  them  that  was  impossible,  that  I  never  did 
own  a  slave,  and  never  intended  to  own  one  ;  that  Mrs. 

had  written  to  inform  me  of  their  misfortune,  and 

that  I  would  do  all  I  could  to  persuade  some  of  my  frienda 
to  do  what  they  wished  me  to  do. 

Leaving  a  little  money  with  them,  I  drove  to  the  house 
of  a  gentleman  who  knew  what  it  was  most  advisable 
to  do  in  such  a  case,  but  he  gave  me  very  little  conso- 
lation. He  said  that  he  knew  of  several  transactions 
ofG*****  of  a  similar  character ;  that  he  had  more 
than  once  purchased  slaves  to  prevent  their  being  sent 
•to  the  South,  and  that  he  would  interest  himself  in  the 
affair,  but  that  it  would  take  some  time  to  put  anything 
in  train  for  their  relief.  I  left  Washington  that  evening, 
and  on  my  return  some  months  afterwards,  had  the  satis- 
faction of  learning  that  the  publicity  I  had  given  to  the 
affair  had  prevented  the  separation  of  these  unfortunate 
but  respectable  persons. 


sers  to  buy  the  land,  and  no  tenants  to  rent  it. 
The  Abolitionists,  therefore,  call  upon  the  plant- 
ers to  bring  ruin  upon  their  families  without 
helping  the  negro.  In  the  mean  time  the  Abo- 
litionists, not  uniting  in  some  great  practical 
measure  to  effect  the  emancipation  of  all  slaves 
at  the  national  expense,  suffer  the  evil  to  go  on 
increasing  ;  the  negro  population  amounts  now 
to  about  two  millions,  and  the  question — as  to 
the  Southern  States — will,  with  the  tide  of  time, 
be  a  most  appalling  one,  viz.,  whether  the  white 
or  the  black  race  is  fo  predominate. 

The  uncompromising  obloquy  which  has  been 
cast  at  the  Southern  planters,  by  their  not  too 
scrupulous  adversaries,  is  therefore  not  deserv- 
ed by  them  ;  and  it  is  but  fair  to  consider  them 
as  only  indirectly  responsible  for  such  scenes 
as  arise  out  of  the  revolting  traffic  which  is  car- 
ried on  by  these  sordid,  illiterate,  and  vulgar 
slave-drivers— men  who  can  have  nothing  what- 
ever in  common  with  the  gentlemen  of  the 
Southern  states.  This  land  traffic,  in  fact,  has 
grown  out  of  the  wide-spreading  population  of 
the  United  States,  the  annexation  of  Louisiana, 
and  the  increased  cultivation  of  cotton  and  su- 
gar. The  fertile  lowlands  of  that  territory  can 
only  be  worked  by  blacks,  and  are  almost  of 
illimitable  extent.  Hence  negroes  have  risen 
greatly  in  price,  from  500  to  1000  dollars,  accord- 
ing to  their  capacity.  Slaves  being  thus  in  de- 
mand, a  detestable  branch  of  business — where 
sometimes  a  great  deal  of  money  is  made — has 
very  naturally  arisen  in  a  country  rilled  with 
speculators.  The  soil  of  Virginia  has  gradually 
become  exhausted  with  repeated  crops  of  tobac- 
co and  Indian  corn  ;  and  when  to  this  is  added 
the  constant  subdivision  of  property  which  has 
overtaken  every  family  since  the  abolition  of  en- 
tails, it  follows  of  course  that  many  of  the  small 
proprietors,  in  their  efforts  to  keep  up  appearan- 
ces, have  become  embarrassed  in  their  circum- 
stances, and,  when  they  are  pinched,  are  com- 
pelled to  sell  a  negro  or  two.  The  wealthier 
proprietors  also  have  frequently  fractious  and 
bad  slaves,  which,  when  they  cannot  be  reclaim- 
ed, are  either  put  into  jail,  or  into  those  depots 
which  exist  in  all  the  large  towns  for  the  recep- 
tion of  slaves  who  are  sold,  until  they  can  be  re- 
moved. All  this  is  very  well  known  to  the  slave- 
driver,  one  of  whose  associates  goes  annually 
to  the  Southwestern  States,  to  make  his  con- 
tracts with  those  planters  there  who  are  in  want 
of  slaves  for  the  next  season.  These  fellows 
then  scour  the  country  to  make  purchases. 
Those  who  are  bought  out  of  jail  are  always 
put  in  fetters,  as  well  as  any  of  those  whom 
they  may  suspect  of  an  intention  to  escape. 
The  women  and  grown-up  girls  are  usually  sold 
into  the  cotton-growing  States,  the  men  and 
the  boys  to  the  rice  and  sugar  plantations. 
Persons  with  large  capital  are  actively  concern- 
ed in  this  trade,  some  of  whom  have  amassed 
considerable  fortunes.  But  occasionally  these 
dealers  in  men  are  made  to  pay  fearfully  the 
penalty  of  their  nefarious  occupation.  I  was 
told  that  only  two  or  three  months  before  I 
passed  this  way  a  "  gang"  had  surprised  their 
conductors  when  off  their  guard,  and  had  killed 
some  of  them  with  axes. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Cause  of  some  Confusion  in  the  Designation  of  the  Alle- 
ghaiy  Ridges  explained. — A  Duck-shooting  Landlord. — 
Arrive  at  Abingdon.— Account  of  Saltville.— Geology  of 
the  Valley  and  surrounding  Country.— Visit  to  King's 
Cove,  a  singular  Basin  in  Clinch  Mountain,  the  Resi- 
dence of  an  Outlaw. — His  Account  of  the  Panthers  and 
Wild  Cat  Accoucheurs.— Strata  of  the  Clinch  Mountain. 

FROM  New  River  the  country  rises  to  New- 
burn,  a  village  situated  upon  a  lofty  and  fertile 
table-land  covered  with  rich  grass  and  well  wa- 
tered; finer  pastures  I  have  never  seen,  nor  a 
more  promising-looking  district  for  grazing.  As 
we  advanced  to  the  south-west,  I  found  a  great 
deal  of  confusion  prevailing  amongst  the  country 
people  respecting  the  designation  given  to  the 
principal  ridges  of  this  part  of  the  country.  That 
chain,  which  is  called  the  Blue  Ridge  in  the 
north-eastern  parts  of  Virginia,  and  which  is  the 
most  advanced  towards  the  Atlantic,  is  by  many 
persons  in  this  quarter  called  the  Alleghany 
Ridge ;  and  a  ridge  which  runs  behind,  or  to  the 
west  of  this,  is  called  the  Blue  Ridge.  This  has 
taken  place  from  the  want  of  a  little  elementary 
information  in  geology. 

The  Blue  Ridge  is  the  most  advanced  towards 
the  east  of  all  the  ridges  of  the  great  elevated 
Alleghany  Belt,  except  a  small  subordinate  and 
partial  ridge,  which  in  the  central  parts  of  Vir- 
ginia is  called  South- West  Mmmtain.  The  Blue 
Ridge,  in  fact,  fronts  the  Atlantic,  and  may  fair- 
ly claim  to  be  called  tbe  Atlantic  Primary  Chain, 
consisting,  wherever  it  is  seen,  of  a  mixture  of 
talcose,  quartzose,  hornblende,  green  altered 
epidotic  rocks,  ancient  sandstones,  and  chlorite 
slates,  exceedingly  intersected  with  strong  quartz 
veins ;  being  also  non-fossiliferous,  it  is,  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word,  and  according  to  the 
received  opinions  of  the  most  accredited  Euro- 
pean geologists,  to  be  classed  among  the  primary 
rocks,  in  the  sense  that  these  have  preceded  the 
formations  containing  fossiliferous  beds.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  ridges  which  immediately  suc- 
ceed to  the  west  of  this  Atlantic  Primary  Chain 
consist  of  fossiliferous  beds  and  sedimentary 
rocks  without  exception,  and  undoubtedly  belong 
to  the  formations  which  have  hitherto  been  call- 
ed transition,  and  which  Mr.  Murchison  has  now 
included  in  his  system  of  Silurian  Rocks.  The 
most  remarkable  of  these  is  that  great  watershed, 
which  has  been  before  noticed,  called  the  Alle- 
ghany Mountain,  or  Ridge,  which,  although 
farther  to  the  north  it  generally  maintains  a  reg- 
ular distance  from  the  Atlantic  Primary  Chain, 
here  seems  to  converge  to  the  south,  and  towards 
the  point  where  the  Blue  Ridge  divides  into  two 
ridges,  the  westernmost  taking  the  name  of  the 
Iron  Mountain,  and  farther  to  the  S.W.  that 
of  Unaykay,  which  is  the  Cherokee  term  for 
"  white  ;"  while  the  eastern  one,  pursuing  its  way 
to  the  S.S.W.,  forms  the  western  boundary  of 
Patrick  County ;  the  space  contained  between 
these  two  primary  ridges  being  occupied  by 
Grayson  and  Floyd  counties.  The  country  peo- 
ple, however,  not  adverting  to  the  difference  be- 
tween the  constituents  and  age  of  the  primary 
and  sedimentary  ridges,  suppose  the  Alleghany 
Ridge  to  have  crossed  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  that 
the  most  eastern  of  the  two  primary  ridges  is  its 
continuation;  hence  they  call  this  last  the  Alle- 
ghany Ridge,  and  the  western  one  the  Blue 
Ridge :  and  this  is  not  incorrect  as  far  as  it  re- 
lates to  its  watershed  character,  for  the  eastern 
ridge  does  throw  down  some  headwaters  of  the 
Kanawha  to  the  west,  and  of  the  Roanoke  to  the 


Some  of  the  limestone  beds  in  the  vicinity  of 
Newburn  are  nearly  horizontal,  and  contain 
patches  of  chert  of  a  blackish  colour,  of  the  same 
character  as  thai  which  marks  Black  Rock  in  the 
State  of  New  York.  Anthracite  coal  is  found  in 
most  of  the  little  valleys  about  here,  at  the  foot 
of  the  ridges,  conforming  to  the  flexure  of  the 
strata.  To  our  left,  about  eight  miles,  at  Aus- 
tinville,  near  to  the  Iron  Mountain,  there  is  a 
vein  of  galena  in  the  limestone,  which  is  worked 
with  some  success,  and  which  runs,  as  I  was 
informed,  nearly  north-east.  We  stopped  at 
Wythe  Court  House,  at  the  shabby,  dirty  tavern 
where  the  stage-coach  puts  up,  and  where  they 
pretended  to  give  us  dinner;  but  everything  was 
so  filthy,  it  was  impossible  to  eat.  The  landlord, 
a  noisy,  ill-dressed,  officious  fellow,  was  eternal- 
ly coming  into  the  room  with  his  mouth  full  of 
tobacco,  plaguing  us  to  eat  his  nasty  pickles  and 
trash  along  with  the  bread  and  milk  we  were 
contented  to  dine  upon,  and  for  which  he  charged 
us  half  a  dollar  each. 

This  worthy  was  a  perfect  representative  of 
that  class  of  lazy,  frowzy,  tobacco-chewing  coun- 
try landlords  who  think  nothing  is  right  unless 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  dirt  mixed  up  with  it. 
Seated  upon  a  chair,  with  his  legs  sprawling 
upon  two  others,  his  great  deljght  was  to  bask  in 
the  sun  at  the  door  of  his  tavern,  and  watch  the 
approach  of  the  stage-coach,  or  any  other  vehicle 
or  person  that  was  upon  the  road.  It  was  in  this 
situation  we  found  him,  dressed  in  a  pair  of  pre- 
posterously-fitting trowsers,  covered  with  grease, 
a  joundabout  jacket  to  correspond,  and  a  con- 
ceited, lantern-jawed,  snuff-coloured  visage,  with 
an  old,  ragged  straw  hat  stuck  at  the  top  of  it. 
But  he  had  one  surprising  talent.  From  his  long 
practice  of  chewing  large  mouthfuls  of  tobacco, 
and  the  consequent  necessity  of  ridding  himself 
of  the  strong  decoctions  that,  like  a  spring-tide, 
constantly  threatened  to  break  their  bounds,  he 
had  gradually  acquired  the  art  of  expectorating 
with  such  force  and  precision,  that  he  could  hit 
anything  within  a  reasonable  distance,  and  with 
a  force  before  unknown  to  belong  to  that  branch 
of  projectiles.  Mr.  Jefferson's  doctrines  had  one 
of  their  most  able  exponents  in  him,  for,  when 
he  was  hard  pushed  at  an  election,  he  sometimes 
gave  his  opponents  just  cause  for  seeing  that  he 
was  the  wrong  man  to  contend  with,  by  squirt- 
ing his  opinions  into  their  eyes — a  mode  of  argu- 
ment which,  as  he  was  a  justice  of  peace  into  the 
bargain,  caused  him  to  be  respected  accordingly. 

We  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a  curious 
specimen  of  this  man's  talents  before  we  left  the 
house,  for,  as  we  were  preparing  to  get  into  the 
stage-coach,  a  flock  of  young  ducklings,  with  an 
old  one  or  two,  came  waddling  along  with  re- 
markably uncertain  steps ;  the  old  ones  advan- 
ced, looked,  and  hesitated,  whilst  the  young  ones 
hardly  seemed  to  know  which  way  they  were 
going:  most  of  them  seemed  to  be  blind,  and,  in 
fact,  had  been  partly  deprived  of  sight  ever  since 
they  had  been  able  to  waddle  about ;  for  as  soon 
as  they  were  hatched,  the  old  duck  bringing  the 
little  o'nes  to  pay  their  compliments  to  the  land- 
lord on  his  three  chairs,  and  to  pick  up  what 
crumbs  they  might  find,  he,  merely  to  keep  up 
his  practice,  was  in  the  habit  of  knocking  the 
little  ducklings  over  neck  and  heels  whenever 
they  came  within  shot,  and  so  in  process  of  time 
the"  poor  things  had  lost  the  use  of  their  eyes. 
The  old  duck  had  perhaps  been  spared  on  ac- 
count of  her  maternal  character  ;  but  from  what 
I  saw  of  her  motions,  I  rather  think  she  had  be- 


40 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


come  as  expert  at  dodging  as  he  was  at  knock- 
ing her  young  ones  over.  These  details  of  this 
accomplishment  of  the  worthy  landlord  and  jus- 
tice, I  had  afterward  from  the 'driver  of  the  stage- 
coach. 

From  this  place  to  Mount  Airy  we  found  the 
road  very  bad,  and,  arriving  there  late,  stopped 
at  an  indifferent-looking  house,  where,  to  our 
great  surprise,  we  got  a  clean  supper  and  single 
bed-rooms.  Mount  Airy  is  on  one  of  the  lofty 
parts  of  this  table-land,  which  here  throws  down 
some  of  the  headwaters  of  the  Tennessee  River; 
and  as  we  advanced  next  day  to  the  west,  we 
found  excellent  pastures  in  every  direction,  and 
a  very  beautiful  country;  graceful  knolls  of 
limestone  well  wooded  to  the  top,  rich  grazing- 
grounds,  and  a  surprising  fertility  all  around. 
The  edges  of  the  limestone  strata,  however,  cross 
the  road  often,  and  make  it  very  rough  travel- 
ling. We  passed  many  patches  of  red  earth  that 
bore  .a  very  luxuriant  herbage:  soils  of  this  col- 
our appear  to  be  derived  from  two 'sources,  a 
red  argillaceous  rock,  of  which  I  have  observed 
some  isolated  patches,  and  a  red  ferruginous 
sandstone,  which  last,  on  decomposing,  makes 
rather  a  barren  surface,  probably  from  the  too 
great  abundance  of  ferruginous  oxide.  At  the 
ford  of  the  north  fork  of  the  Holston  River — a 
main  tributary  of  the  Tennessee — there  is  a  fine 
bottom  land  which  is  very  productive,  yielding 
eighty  bushels  of  maize  to  the  acre.  This  valu- 
able estate  belongs  to  General  Preston,  father  to 
the  distinguished  senator  from  South  Carolina, 
Colonel  Preston.  It  was  late  in  the  night  before 
we  arrived  at  Abingdon,  a  straggling  village, 
which  was  originally  built  by  the  Scotch  and 
Irish,  who  penetrated  into  these  most  distant 
parts  of  Virginia  from  Pennsylvania  at  an  early 
period.  Tkese  settlers  had  no  blood  connection 
with  those  English  families  of  Eastern  Virginia, 
or  the  Old  Dominion,  as  the  Virginians  love  to 
call  it,  who  took  possession  of  the  country  by 
the  way  of  James  River,  but  were  a  distinct 
people,  equally  remarkable  for  their  enterprise. 
Most  fortunately,  General  Preston  and  his  fam- 
ily were  at  home,  as  well  as  Colonel  Preston, 
the  senator,  and  his  lady,  with  both  of  whom  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  being  well  acquainted.  I 
was  received  in  the  most  friendly  manner  by 
them  all,  and  during  my  stay  was  indebted  to 
them  for  the  most  obliging  attentions.  General 
Preston  is  a  person  of  the  highest  respectability, 
and  has  always  been  distinguished  for  great  en- 
ergy of  character,  without  which  no  man,  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  period  when  he  first 
came  here,  would  have  advanced  into  so  unset- 
tled a  wilderness  as  this  was.  He  is  now  a  very 
opulent  landholder,  and  can  count  one  hundred 
and  sixty-two  descendants. 

The  day  after  our  arrival,  Colonel  Preston 
most  obligingly  sent  a  couple  of  blood  mares  for 
my  son  and  myself,  for  an  excursion  we  pro- 
posed to  make  to  his  father's  salt-works,  sixteen 
miles  distant,  of  which  I  had  heard  a  great  deal. 

We  crossed  a  ridge  called  Walker's  Mountain 
— which  we  had  had  upon  our  right  a  great  part 
of  our  journey — by  a  very  low  gap,  and  soon 
reached  Sattvitte,  the  object  of  our  excursion. 
This  is  a  ragged  assemblage  of  wooden  build- 
ings where  the  salt  is  manufactured,  and  is  situ- 
ated in  a  small  vale  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
long,  and,  perhaps,  six  hundred  yards  broad :  it 
is  evidently  the  site  of  an  ancient  lake;  indeed, 
canoes  were  used  when  the  white  people  first 
took  possession  of  the  place,  and  even  now  it  is 


a  low,  flat,  marshy  bottom,  imperfectly  drained. 
After  riding  about  and  looking  at  the  place,  we 
rode  to  the  Plaster  Banks,  a  deep  quarry  exca- 
vation from  whence  they  take  the  gypsum  in 
blocks,  which  is  sold  on  the  spot  at  four  dollars 
and  a  half  per  ton.  At  sunset  we  rode  to  the 
superintendent's,  where  we  found  Colonel  Will- 
iam King,  one  of  the  lessees,  to  whom  we  had 
very  friendly  letters,  and  by  whom  we  were  kind- 
ly received,  and  immediately  made  at  home. 
The  next  day  we  devoted  to  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  this  interesting  place  under  the  guidance 
of  Colonel  King. 

The  floor  of  this  small  vale  is  formed  of  a 
limestone,  running  E.N.E.,  apparently  of  the 
same  period  as  that  of  the  valley  of  Shenandoah, 
and  is  contained  between  lofty  hummocks  or 
hills  of  the  same  mineral,  round  and  conical  at 
the  top.  These  hills  present  the  appearance  of 
having  been  once  united  by  a  continuous  floor  at 
a  level  of  perhaps  200  feet  higher  than  the  pres- 
ent floor  of  the  vale.  The  salt  water  was  first 
discovered  by  its  exuding  from  the  hills  of  the 
eastern  slope,  near  the  old  mansion-house  once 
occupied  by  the  Preston  family ;  but  wells  hav- 
ing been  subsequently  sunk  more  towards  the 
centre  of  the  marsh,  those  old  springs  have  ceased 
to  flow.  The  wells  have  been  dug  220  feet, 
through  a  deposit  of  clay  and  gypsum  much  mix- 
ed up  with  salt.  In  sinking  their  augurs  through 
the  mineral  matter,  they  drop  through  into  the 
water  at  a  certain  depth,  and  as  they  sometimes 
hear  fragments  of  gypseous  clay  splash  into  it,  it 
is  evident  there  is  a  vast  reservoir  of  salt  water 
at  the  depth  of  220  feet.  In  dry  weather,  and 
especially  after  long-continued  drought,  the  wa- 
ter becomes  excessively  salt,  yielding,  as  I  was 
informed,  one  bushel  of  salt  of  50  Ibs.  to  24  gal- 
lons of  water;  but  in  the  rainy  seasons  the  at- 
mospheric waters  raise  the  wells,  and  make  the 
brine  weaker.  The  water  from  the  well  called 
the  Preston  Well  is  pumped  up  day  and  night,  and 
permitted  to  run  off  unused,  to  make  the  water 
of  another  well,  called  the  King  Well,  more  pro- 
ductive; because,  if  the  Preston  Well,  which  is 
within  eighty  feet  of  the  other,  were  not  dischar- 
ged in  this  way,  the  water  of  the  other  well  would 
be  too  weak.  And  the  necessity  of  doing  this 
arises  from  the  fact  that  a  subterranean  stream 
of  fresh  water  runs  into  the  Preston  Well  at  a 
certain  depth  from  the  surface,  and  from  thence 
has  an  oblique  passage  downwards  into  the  King- 
Well,  and  thus  reduces  its  strength.  They  are 
therefore  obliged  to  pump,  to  keep  down  the  lev- 
el of  the  waters  of  the  Preston  Well  below  the 
orifice  by  which  they  would  otherwise  mingle 
with  the  King  Well. 

The  pure  beds  of  gypsum,  or  sulphate  of  lime, 
lie  at  the  E.N.E.  end"  of  this  vale,  and  the  plas- 
ter is,  as  frequently  occurs  in  other  localities, 
capped  by  an  incoherent  sandstone.  This  gyp- 
sum may  have  been  deposited  by  the  same  wa- 
ter, or  by  a  mineral  spring  which  has  ceased  to 
flow  or  escapes  under  ground ;  a  supposition 
strengthened  by  the  fact  that  other  extensive  de- 
posits of  gypsum  are  found  to  the  N.E.,  in  the 
valley  between  Walker's  Mountain,  and  the 
ridge  called  Clinch  Mountain,  where  there  are 
no  salt  springs.  Springs  containing  sulphate 
of  lime  only  may  have  been  common  in  ancient 
geological  periods;  gypsum,  however,  is  gener- 
ally found  associated  with  salt,  and  this  brine  at 
the  King  Well  i?  so  highly  loaded  with  sulphate 
of  lime,  that  not  only  do  immense  numbers  of 
small  crystals  of  the  sulphate  come  up  with  it. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


41 


but  when  the  kettles  are  examined  after  a  week's 
boiling,  their  bottoms  are  always  found  "  blocked 
up"  as  it  is  technically  called,  with  layers  of 
gypsum  from  each  succeeding  boiling,  six  or 
eight  inches  thick. 

This  vale  or  basin  was  probably— after  the  ele- 
vation of  the  land  which  shuts  it  in — a  laka  fed 
by  saline  and  gypseous  springs.  The  limestone 
is  very  cavernous,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that 
at  some  period  the  surrounding  hummocks  may 
have  been  united  with  extensive  caverns  inter- 
vening into  which  the  mineral  waters  rose. 
When  the  connection  between  these  hummocks 
was  destroyed,  that  portion  of  the  lake  where  de- 
posits of  gypsum  were  formed  above  the  brine, 
would,  in  the  course  of  time,  be  filled  in  with 
aluminous  earth  brought  in  by  the  adjacent 
streams,  as  in  the  case  of  the  valley  at  the  Sweet 
Springs,  and  thus  a  body  of  clay  and  gypsum 
would  be  formed,  such  as  they  now  bore  through 
into  the  salt  water  at  this  place.  As  additional 
evidence  that  this  vale  has  once  been  an  exten- 
sive lake,  the  same  earthy  and  mineral  deposits 
are  found  in  the  borings  at  the  S.W.  end.  A  few 
hundred  yards  west  of  the  buildings  at  Saltville, 
and  in  the  road  leading  to  the  Holston  River,  is  a 
deposit  of  150  feet  of  argillaceous  matter,  50  feet 
of  which  consists  of  blue  vertical  slate,  and  100 
feet  of  brown  soft  argillaceous  schist;  this  last 
contains  madrepores  and  producta,  of  which  I 
procured  some  fine  specimens,  and  runs  a  great 
distance  through  the  country  N.E.  and  S.W., 
being  identical  with  what  has  hitherto  been  call- 
ed graywacke  slate. 

From  this  vale,  accompanied  by  one  of  our 
new  friends,  we  set  off  on  horseback  to  examine 
a  place  called  King's  Cove,  of  which  a  great  deal 


leghany  ridge,  near  the  White  Sulphur,  and  holds 
a  very  straight  course  to  the  N.E.  as  far  as  the 
Kanawha  River.  The  name  of  cove  is  given  in 
this  part  of  the  country  to  any  crater-like  basin 
or  vale  of  land  entirely  surrounded  by  lofty  hills, 
and  there  are  many  such  in  these  mountains. 
Some  of  them  contain  from  500  to  1000  acres  of 
the  most  fertile  soil.  There  is  one  called  Burke's 
Garden  farther  to  the  north,  up  the  Clinch  ridge, 
which  was  described  to  me  as  a  very  extraordi- 
nary kind  of  amphitheatre,  surrounded  by  a  circle 
of  lofty  hills,  and  containing  from  3000  to  4000 
acres  of  the  most  fertile  land.  The  cove  we 
went  to  see  was  difficult  of  access ;  after  travel- 
ling about  three  miles  up  the  ridge,  we  came 
suddenly  upon  it,  and  got  into  it  by  a  difficult 
pass,  just  wide  enough  for  one  horse,  where  the 
mountain  side  sloped  at  an  angle  of  about  65° 
among  the  loose  sandstone  rocks,  which  made  it 
frequently  necessary  for  us  to  dismount.  On  our 
right  was  a  deep  ravine  which  separated  us  from 
some  lofty  mural  escarpments,,  at  the  top  of 
which  were  strong  ledges  of  naked  sandstone 
hanging  at  an  angle  of  about  55°.  The  scene 
was  strikingly  wild. 

Our  guide  was  a  very  extraordinary  character, 
quite  without  a  rival,  as  I  was  told,  in  his  line; 
and  truly  I  never  saw  a  greater  original,  or  met 
with  a  man  that  so  precisely  came  up  to  my  idea 
of  a  Yankee  outlaw.  He  was  known  by  the 
name  of  Charley  Talbot,  was  a  spare,  sallow 
fellow,  with  eyes  that  glanced  incessantly  from 
one  object  to  another,  without  resting  more  than 
an  instant  upon  anything.  If  he  was  quite  sure 
that  the  thing  he  was  looking  at  was  not  the 
F 


sheriff  come  to  arrest  him,  or  a  panther,  or  a  rat- 
tlesnake, he  immediately  turned  his  attention  to 
something  else;  and  although  he  was  more  than 
sixty  years  old,  he  was  beyond  all  comparison 
the  most  active  of  our  party.  This  cove  was  his 
den,  where  he  lived,  and  from  it,  when  danger 
was  impending  from  officials,  he  could,  in  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour,  be  in  any  of  the  four  counties  of 
Washington,  Russel,  Tazewell,  or  Wythe,  all  of 
which  happen  to  corner  here  "quite  slick." 

As  we  nad  given  Charley  no  notice  of  our  ap- 
proach, we  took  him  by  surprise  on  approaching 
his  hut;  and  when  he  came  to  the  door  and  saw 
us,  Colonel  King  observed  that  he  faltered,  be- 
lieving us  to  be  limbs  of  the  law,  the  Sheriff  of 
Washington  County  having  made  an  unsuccess- 
ful attempt  to  bag  him  a  few  days  before.  Char- 
ley had  attracted  the  public  attention  some  time : 
as  a  panther-hunter,  a  wild-cat  killer,  a  man  that 
would  drag  a  bear  out  of  his  den,  bring  down  a 
deer,  and  that  failing,  kill  the  fat  hogs  or  beeves 
of  the  settlers,  his  character  was  established. 
His  merits,  too,  were  acknowledged  as  a  dabbler 
in  literature,  being  with  some  reason  suspected 
of  keeping  up  an  intimate  connection  with  the 
dealers  in  counterfeit  bank-notes,  that  seem  to 
abound  in  every  part  of  the  United  States.  Be- 
ing obliged,  therefore,  to  come  occasionally  info 
the  world,  Charley  was  provided  with  a  grey  stal- 
lion of  great  fleetness  and  bottom  to  go  to  Abing- 
don  on  a  Sunday,  when  he  was  privileged  from 
arrest,  and  upon  these  occasions  he  used  to  boast 
that  his  nag  and  himself  cared  nothing  for  Mon- 
day, because  they  knew  every  inch  of  the  country 
as  well  by  night  as  by  day. 

As  soon  as  our  real  object  in  visiting  the  cove 
was  explained  to  him,  he  laid  aside  all  appre- 
hension, and  showed  great  alacrity  in  assisting 
us,  and  took  us  to  various  parts  of  the  cove. 
Some  maize  of  extraordinary  dimensions  was 
growing  not  far  from  his  hut,  on  the  fertile  red 
soil,  resembling  that  which  I  had  frequently  seen 
on  my  way  to  Abingdon,  and  on  lifting  up  my 
glass  I  saw  that  the  very  summit  of  the  mount- 
ain to  the  left  was  capped  by  red  horizontal 
rocks,  forming  an  escarpment.  Upon  my  ex- 
pressing a  desire  to  go  there,  Charley  instantly- 
offered  to  conduct  me :  leaving,  therefore,  my 
friends,  who  had  been  at  the  top  of  the  mountain, 
before,  I  put  myself  under  his  direction,  listen- 
ing to  the  interesting  stories  he  related  about 
'•'  varmint,"  as  he  called  panthers,  wild  cats,  and 
bears. 

According  to  his  experience  the  "painter," — 
for  so  the  country-people  call  the  panther — is  shy 
of  the  "human,"  whom  he  never  attacks  but, 
when  he  is  wounded  or  ravenously  hungry.  He* 
is,  however,  easily  taken  by  the  hunter  when  he 
has  dogs  with  him,  for  if  the  animal  has  not  time 
to  leap  on  a  tree  before  the  dogs  close  in  upon 
him,  the  hunter  despatches  him  with  his  rifle, 
whilst  the  dogs,  as  Charley  said,  "is  managing- 
the  varmint."  But  when  the  dogs  are  in  full 
pursuit,  and  close  at  his  heels,  he  springs  at  the 
first  tree  that  suits  him,  generally  selecting  one 
whose  lower  branches  are  about  twelve  feet  from, 
the  ground,  knowing  well  that  no  animal  he  is 
upon  bad  terns  with  can  perform  the  feat.  The 
rifle  soon  puts  an  end  to  the  presumptive  thought 
that  he  is  in  safety. 

The  panther  (Fclis  discolor)  is  the  lion  of  Amer- 
ca,  and  bears  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  Afri- 
can lioness.  Charley  had  killed  a  great  many 
of  them,  and  they  were  now  becoming  scarce  in 
his  cove;  still  he  said  there  were  four  or  five 


42 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


-arge  ones  that  haunted  it,  and  these  came  from 
the  strong  laurel  thickets  in  Russel  County,  to 
watch  a  gap  at  the  top  of  the  mountain,  which 
was  the  usual  place  by  which  the  deer  enterec 
the  cove  from  that  direction.  To  this  gap  the 
panthers  hie  before  day,  stretch  themselves  at 
full  length  on  a  log  to  wait  the  approach  of  the 
deer,  and  spring  upon  the  neck  of  the  animal  as 
soon  as  it  is  within  reach ;  whilst  the  whelp  pan- 
ther, if  there  is  one,  brings  a  fawn  to  the  ground. 
•"  But,"  said  Charley,  "  I  hates  them  'ar  cursed 
varmint,  the  cattermount,  as  some  folks  calls 
'em,  a  plaguey  sight  worser  than  the  painters, 
and  there's  a  pretty  smart  scatter  of  'em  in  this 
«ove,  I  tell  you.  The  cursed  critters  do  beat  all 
for  sneaking  along  seven  or  eight  of  'em  togither 
when  a  sow's  going  to  pig,  and  they'll  git  right 
'  -close  to  her  when  she  is  gitting  the  pigs ;  and 
when  she  grunts  at  'em,  the  blasts  .set  up  their 
backs  jist  like  a  iiaytural  cat,  and  one  of  'em 
will  take  one  pig,  and  another  of  'em  will  lay 
hold  of  another  pig,  and  I  swar,  when  she  is 
done,  she  turns  round  and  she  ain't  got  ne'er  a 
pig  on  the  face  of  the  arth.  That's  the  way  these 
^^accountable  varmint  has  sarved  my  sows  ever 
so  many  times,  for  I  reckon  they  like  the  woods 
to  pig  in  better  than  the  stye." 

This  animal,  so  fond  of  sucking  pigs,  is  the 
spotted  wild  cat  (Felis  rufa?},  and  is  universally 
complained  of  in  this  part  of  ftie  country  as  de- 
structive to  young  pigs,  for  the  sows  are  all  per- 
mitted to  run  at  large  in  the  woods. 

After  some  exertion  we  scrambled  up  to  the 
foot  of  the  escarpment,  and  found  that  the  red 
rocks  consisted  of  argillaceo-calcareous  beds, 
resting  upon  horizontal  limestone,  and  that  they 
were  fast  wearing  away  from  the  effects  of  the 
weather,  being  of  a  soft  laminated  structure,  like 
/  the  red  rocks  near  Dawlish  in  Devonshire. 
•Great  portions  of  the  cliff  fall  down  after  wet 
weather  to  increase  the  rich  soil  beneath,  and 
there  the  growth  of  trees,  plants,  and  herbage  is 
surprisingly  luxuriant.  When  I  had  examined 
the  rocks  at  this  point,  perceiving  that  it  was 
possible  to  scramble  along  the  head  of  the  talus, 
which  is  formed  by  the  crumbling  escarpment 
for  a  very  great  portion  of  the  distance  round  the 
cove,  I  expressed  a  desire  to  examine  the  beds 
farther  to  the  S.W.,  so  Charley  most  obligingly 
led  the  way,  and  soon  got  out  of  sight,  for  I  was 
loitering  along  looking  for  rare  plants,  fossils, 
land-shells,  or  anything  else  in  so  interesting  a 
place,  and  could  no  longer  hear  him  pushing  his 
way  through  the  bushes.  There  was  a  thicket 
to  pass  through  which  was  very  dense,  on  the 
right  of  which  was  the  mural  pile  of  argillaceo- 
calcareous  beds,  which  indeed,  as  Charley  had 
well  observed,  "looked  powerful  curious;"  be- 
fore I  reached  it,  and  whilst  I  was  stopping  to 
hammer  away  at  some  fossils,  it  came  into  my 
head  that  some  of  the  "  varmint"  might  be  out 
looking  for  "  spiciments,"  as  my  companion  call- 
ed them,  as  well  as  myself;  and  I  quickened 
my  steps  a  little,  as  fast  as  the  nature  of  the  soil 
would  permit  me  to  do,  for  it  had  rained  that 
morning  and  was  slippery :  but  faithful  Char- 
ley was  full  of  consideration  for  me,  and  I 
found  him  quietly  waiting  at  no  great  distance. 
"Look  here,  stranger,"  said  he,  "here  is  the 
track  of  one  of  them  'ar  painters,  and  I  reckon 
it  is  a  considerable  big  bitch,  for  here's  a  whelp's 
track  along  with  it."  The  impressions  had  been 
made  before  the  rain  fell,  and  the  prints  of  the 
toes  were  somewhat  deadened,  but  not  at  all  ob- 
literated ;  the  whelp's  track  was  generally  found 


following  the  other,  and  we  traced  them  both  dis- 
tinctly for  a  great  distance.  It  was  evident  they 
had  been  prowling  just  before  day,  ere  the  rain, 
had  fallen,  and  were  going  towards  the  deer  gap. 
It  was  now  1  P.M.,  and  Charley  said  it  was 
the  custom  of  the  "  painters,"  as  no  game  was 
abroad,  to  retire  at  that  hour  into  the  laurel 
thickets  on  the  west  side  of  the  Clinch  Mount- 
ain in  Russel  County.  I  therefore  inquired  if  it 
was  possible  to  ascend  the  face  of  the  rocks,  get 
to  the  top  of  the  mountain,  and  take  a  peep  at 
the  laurel  thickets.  Charley  said  he  knew  of  a 
place  where  he  thought  he  could  get  up,  and 
that  he  was  willing  to  lend  me  a  hand  too;  "  but 
I  calculate,  stranger,"  he  added,  "  you  ain't  a- 
going  to  do  no  sich  a  foolish  thing  as  to  go  into 
the  laurels ;  why  there  ain:t  ne'er  a  sheriff  in  the 
lour  counties  but  what's  got  more  sense  than  to 
walk  into  sich  a  fix."  Having  satisfied  Charley 
on  that  score,  he  led  the  way  to  a  part  of  the  es- 
carpment that  was  practicable,  clinging  with  his 
hands  to  points  jutting  from  the  rocks,  and  get- 
ting from  one  ledge  to  another.  Two  or  three 
times  he  stopped  to  give  me  his  advice  and  his 
hand,  but  I  had  been  accustomed  to  climb  worse 
passes,  and  got  up  without  his  assistance  to  the 
summit  of  the  loftiest  pinnacle  of  the  Clinch; 
upon  which  Charley  paid  me  the  compliment  of 
saying,  "  Why  if  you  arn't  a  most  particular 
parson,  then  I  don't  know  one,  for  I  swar  you 
don't  want  no  help  at  all !"  But  when  I  took  out 
instruments  to  ascertain  the  course  of  the  chain, 
the  temperature,  &c.,  Charley's  admiration  of 
me  increased  greatly ;  he  clearly  lost  every  ves- 
tige of  apprehension  that  had  lurked  about  him 
as  to  the  real  nature  of  our  visit;  showed  me  a 
place  where  he  had  a  desperate  fight  with  a 
panther,  and  the  place  where  he  had  treed  and 
shot  him:  after  which  he  most  willingly  took 
me  to  a  point  on  the  flank  of  the  mountain,  from 
whence  we  had  a  view  of  a  dark-looking  dell 
thickly  filled  with  laurels,  and  which  appeared 
:o  be  a  most  judicious  abode  for  "painters." 

The  view  from  the  summit  of  this  part  of  the 
Clinch  Mountain  is  verv  extensive,  by  far  the 
most  ample  I  have  yet  se'en  from  any  of  the  Al- 
leghany  ridges :  to  the  south  it  was  bounded  by 
the  Iron  Mountain ;  but  in  every  directidn  there 
was  scarce  anything  to  be  seen  but  a  succession 
of  ridges  covered  with  their  eternal  forests ;  few- 
indications  of  man  were  to  be  observed,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  some  clearings,  the  scene 
sresented  very  much  the  same  appearance  it 
would  have  done  when  the  Indians  had  exclu- 
sive possession  of  the  country.  The  thermome- 
ter was  8°  of  Fahr.  lower  at  the  summit  than  it 
was  in  the  cove,  and  Charley  said  he  had  never 
seen  any  flies  or  other  insects  on  the  wing  there 
n  the  hottest  weather.  The  elevation  was  judged 
by  me  to  be  about  2400  feet  above  the  level  of 
he  sea. 

In  the  horizontal  limestone  upon  which  the 
red  argillaceous  beds  rest,  I  found  orthocera, 
flustra,  spirifers,  producta,  with  other  fossils  ap- 
jarently  of  the  carboniferous  limestone.  The 
strata  succeed  each  other  as  follows : — 


Horizontal 


Red  Argillaceo-Calcareous  : 
Limestone,  with  Fossils, 
Quartzose  Sandstone. 
Limestone,  inclined  at  an  angle  of  50°. 

If  a  good  stone  fence  were  laid  across  the  ra- 
vine at  the  east  end  of  the  cove  by  which  we  en- 
ered  it,  and  something  done  at  the  Deer  Gap, 
he  expense  of  which  would  not  exceed — as 
"barley  thought— 200  dollars,  about  1200  acres 


TRAVELS   IN  AMEEICA. 


43 


of  extremely  fertile  land  would  be  so  secured 
that  nothing  could  get  in  or  out  of  it,  if  the  occu- 
pant thought  proper.  Exceedingly  gratified  by 
this  excursion,  which  I  believe  terminated  to  the 
perfect  satisfaction  of  Charley,  we  returned  to 
Saltville  to  a  late  dinner  by  way  of  the  north 
branch  of  the  Holston,  in  which  we  saw  great 
numbers  of  large  soft-shelled  turtle  (Trumyx 
feroz)  from  12  to  20  inches  long.  In  the  even- 
ing I  walked  to  the  Holston  and  procured  some 
fresh-water  shells,  several  species  of  unio,  as 
well  as  that  elegant  univalve  the  f^usus fluinal-is 
of  Say.  The  next  morning,  Sept.  12th,  we  took 
leave  of  our  hospitable  friends  Messrs.  King 
and  Lewis,  and  returned  to  Abingdon 


CHAPTER  X. 

&  pleasant  Party  in  a  Stage-coach — Arrive  at  Blountsville 
in  the  State  of  Tennessee — Fists  versus  Dirks  and  Pis- 
tols— Knoxville— Meet  President  Jackson. 

THIS  morning,  September  the  12th,  was  occu- 
pied in  packing  up  and  taking  leave  of  the  Pres- 
ton family,  for  whose  kind  attentions  I  felt  under 
great  obligations;  and  about  two  P.M.  the  stage- 
coach, in  which  I  had  secured  and  paid  for  our 
places  to  Blountsville  in  the  State  of  Tennessee, 
came  to  take  us  away.  Whilst  I  was  standing 
in  the  balcony  of  the  hotel  shaking  hands  with 
Colonel  Preston  and  some  gentlemen  who  had 
called  to  take  leave,  I  observed  a  stout  man 
about  30  years  old  ordering  one  of  my  trunks  to 
be  taken  off  from  the  carriage,  and  to  be  left  be- 
hind; upon  which  I  went  down  to  the  street,  and 
believing  him  to  be  a  contractor  or  agent  for  the 
stage,  began  to  negotiate  with  him  to  pay  for  its 
weight  rather  than  leave  it;  but  perceiving  his 
language  was  a  little  equivocal,  I  asked  him  by 
what  authority  he  interfered  in  the  matter:  upon 
which  he  avowed  himself  to  be  only  a  passenger, 
but  insisted  that  the  trunk  should  be  left,  on  the 
ground  that  the  roads  were  bad,  the  stage  was 
an  old  one,  and  that  no  passenger  was  allowed 
more  than  one  trunk.  Desirous  as  I  was  of 
avoiding  a  quarrel,  I  found  myself  obliged  to 
carry  matters  with  a  very  high  hand  with  this 
officious  person  to  silence  him,  and  at  last  sent 
for  the  agent,  who  told  the  man  that,  having 
paid  for  two  places,  I  had  a  right  to  have  two 
trunks  conveyed :  the  matter  being  thus  decided 
in  my  favour,  the  trunk  was  replaced.  Inside 
of  the  stage  were  two  passengers  from  South 
Carolina,  to  which  state  they  were  going  from 
Blountsville.  One  of  these  persons,  a  Dr. 
"VV*****,  grumbled  a  good  deal  about  the  trunk 
and  the  roads,  but  I  told  him  as  the  agent  had 
decided  that  my  trunk  was  to  go,  I  should  con- 
sider it  as  a  piece  of  personal  impertinence  ad- 
dressed to  myself  if  anything  more  was  said 
about  it;  upon  which  he  had  the  good  sense  to 
make  no  more  remarks.  The  other  Carolinian 
said  nothing.  Besides  these  two  and  the  puppy 
who  had  ordered  my  trunk  to  be  taken  off,  there 
•was  an  exceedingly  strange-looking  white  man, 
and  a  negro  seated  opposite  to  him;  but  as  the 
stage-coach  only  held  six  passengers,  and  there 
•were  already  five  in  it  on  its  arrival,  it  was  evi- 
dent that  either  my  son  or  myself  would  have  to 
ride  outside  unless  the  negro  was  sent  there. 

This  man  I  ascertained  was  the  servant  of  the 
white  man  opposite  to  him,  a  queer  tall  animal 
about  forty  years  old,  with  dark  black  hair  cut 
round  as  if  he  were  a  Methodist  preacher,  im- 


mense black  whiskers,  a  i 
out  one  or  two  tolerable 


physiognomy  not  -«ith- 
features,  but  'singularly 
sharp,  and  not  a  little  piratical  and  repulsive; 
all  this  was  set  off  with  a  huge  broad-brimmed 
white  hat,  adorned  with  a  black  crape  that 
covered  it  almost  to  the  top  of  the  crown.  His 
clothes  also  were  black,  so  that  it  was  evident 
he  intended  people  should  see  he  was  in  mourn- 
ing. I  civilly  asked  this  sorrowful  figure  if  he 
would  let  his  servant  ride  on  the  top  of  the 
coach  and  permit  my  son  to  come  inside,  and 
his  answer  was,  "I  reckon  my  waiter  is  very 
well  where  he  is."  I  told  my  son  therefore  to 
go  to  the  top — where  there  was  another  black 
fellow— and  took  care  to  say  very  deliberately 
and  audibly,  whilst  I  was  holding  the  door  of 
the  stage-coach,  that  he  would  meet  with  some 
better  company  there  than  in  the  inside.  I  now 
took  the  sixth  seat  in  this  pleasant  company, 
and  there  we  were,  all  of  us  apparently  as  dis- 
trustful of  what  was  to  happen  next,  as  if  there 
had  been  a  rattle-snake  under  one  of  the  seats. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  be  seated  opposite  to  the 
fellow  who  had  given  me  so  much  trouble,  so 
that  our  knees  would  necessarily  interfere  with 
each  other  if  we  were  not  mutually  accommo- 
dating, as  travellers  usually  are.  This  man 
would  neither  do  one  thing  nor  another;  he 
seemed  to  put  his  legs  in  the  way  as  much  as  he 
could,  kept  spitting  out  of  the  window,  and  then 
thrusting  his  head  out  of  it;  so  that,  being  made 
exceedingly  uncomfortable,  I  was  compelled  to 
ask  him,  though  I  did  it  in  a  civil  way,  to  keep 
himself  quiet;  but  I  might  as  well  have  remain- 
ed silent,  for,  drawing  himself  up  into  a  some- 
what fierce  and  sullen  attitude,  he  growled  out 
"  that  he  had  as  good  a  right  to  be  in  the  stage 
as  me."  Upon  this  the  broken-hearted  gentle- 
man under  the  black  and  white  sombrero,  who 
had  drawn  forth  some  voluminous  sighs  of  a 
strong  Cipolline  character,  affectionately  put  his 
hand  upon  this  fellow's  thigh,  as  though  they 
were  exceedingly  intimate,  which  encouraged 
him  to  add  "  I  reckon  I  ain't  a-going  to  be  put 
upon  by  no  man :  if  any  man  thinks  he's  a-going 
to  put  upon  me,  he  will  get  no  good  by  it — that 
I  know."  Having  cheered  himself  on  with  this 
encouraging  speech,  he  proceeded  to  take  a  dirk 
from  beneath  nis  waistcoat,  which  having  ap- 
provingly looked  at,  he  replaced;  next  he  took 
a  small  pistol  from  his  pocket  and  showed  it  to 
his  melancholy  friend,  who  observed  that  "  leetel 
pitchers  would  carry  water  as  well  as  big  ones." 
The  other  passengers  said  nothing.  In  the 
Northern  States  such  an  occurrence  as  this,  of 
five  inside  passengers  combining  against  one 
who  had  offended  none  of  them,  could  not  have 
taken  place.  The  very  sight  of  the  dirk  and 
pistol  would  have  incensed  every  one  to  kick 
the  fellow  out,  but  we  were  approaching  coun- 
tries under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  bowie-knife, 
and  having  learnt  at  Abingdon  that  while  we 
were  wrangling  about  the  trunk  they  had  ascer- 
tained from  the  waiter  at  the  tavern  that  I  was 
an  Englishman— a  circumstance  not  much  in  a 
traveller's  favour  when  mixed  up  with  low  fel- 
lows of  the  uneducated  classes  in  America— I 
saw  that  my  policy  was  not  to  get  into  disputes 
with  them,  but  to  watch  their  proceedings. 

In  this  sort  of  humour  we  continued  the  re- 
mainder of  the  journey,  and  at  nine  P.M.  reach- 
ed Blountsville,  a  small  frontier  town  of  the 
State  of  Tennessee.  The  night  was  damp,  and 
we  all  went  into  the  bar-room  of  the  tavern, 
where  a  great  many  persons  were  standing 


-li 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


round  the  fire.  Here,  after  securing  seats  for 
the  next  day,  I  took  my  stand,  happy  to  be  re- 
leased from  the  disagreeable  persons  I  had  been 
shut  up  with,  who,  I  was  informed,  were  go- 
ing in  another  stage-coach  to  South  Carolina. 
Whilst  standing  with  my  back  to  the  fire  look- 
ing at  some  young  children  who  were  a-musing 
themselves  with  blowing  a  horn,  my  old  torment- 
or came  up,  and  in  an  insolent  manner  tried  to 
provoke  me  into  a  quarrel  with  him :  for  a  long 
time  I  refused  to  speak  to  him,  but  perceiving  at 
length  that  he  was  exciting  a  great  prejudice 
against  me,  and  becoming  rather  irritated,  I  told 
him  that  he  might,  for  aught  I  knew,  know  a 
great  deal,  as  he  said  he  did;  but  that  he  didn't 
know  the  difference  betwixt  a  gentleman  and 
such  a  low,  impudent  jackanapes  as  himself; 
and  that  though  1  was  his  senior  by  a  great  many 
years,  I  thought  it  would  be  quite  advisable  for 
him  not  to  provoke  me  any  further.  Upon  this, 
without  further  circumlocution,  and  boiling  over 
with  inarticulate  rage,  he  said  "I  allow  you  are 
a  *— *  old  rascal,  and  that's  just  what  you  are." 

During  all  my  journeys  in  North  America  I 
had  never  carried  pistols,  or  dirk,  or  hidden  weap- 
ons with  me,  or  any  arms  but  a  rifle  to  procure 
myself  game,  and  hitherto  I  had  not  found  it  ne- 
cessary to  do  so.  I  now  saw  that  I  had  to  do 
with  a  bully  armed  with  a  knife,  and  who  was 
prepared  to  use  it ;  and  who,  seeing  the  advan- 
tage he  had  over  me,  and  believing  that  he  could 
say  what  he  pleased  with  impunity  in  a  crowd 
of  fellows  who  were  delighted  to  see  an  English- 
man insulted,  felt  quite  sure  that  he  might  in- 
dulge in  every  sort  of  insolence  with  impunity. 
Great  was  the  surprise  therefore  of  the  beholders 
when  they  saw  me  draw  out  a  couple  of  instru- 
ments, the  noble  use  of  which  was  altogether  un- 
known in  the  enlightened  State  of  Tennessee. 
Near  forty  years  before  this  memorable  evening, 
I  had  in  my  young  days  been  an  eager  pupil  of 
the  then  celebrated  pugilist  Jackson ;  and  no 
sooner  did  the  word  rascal  come  strangely  to  my 
ears,  than  all  the  practice  I  had  acquired  under 
my  great  master  suddenly  and  intuitively  came 
to  my  finger's  ends.  It  was  literally  Scarborough 
warning  he  got — a  word  and  a  blow;  in  an  in- 
stant I  served  him  upon  his  astonished  optics 
with  two  "  straightforwarders,"  right  and  left, 
and  down  he  went  on  the  floor  into  an  ocean  of 
tobacco  spit,  quite  puzzled  to  imagine  how  he 
had  got  there.  Perceiving,  however,  that  he 
began  to  fumble  for  his  dirk  and  pistols,  I  in- 
stantly jumped  upon  him,  whereupon  the  land- 
lord jumped  upon  me,  and  my  son  upon  the  land- 
lord. We  had  a  few  moments  of  very  interest- 
ing scuffle  and  confusion,  but  being  at  length 
separated,  the  fallen  bully  was  lifted  up  with  his 
eyes  and  cheeks  piffled  up  like  a  muffle,  crest- 
fallen, and  an  object  of  pity  even  to  myself. 
Nothing  more  was  said  now  about  pistols  or 
dirk«,  and  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  this 
foolish  fellow,  who  thought  I  should  be  content 
with'  telling  him  back  again,  according  to  the 
manners  of  his  equals,  that  he  was  a  rascal  too, 
led  off",  almost  frightened  out  of  his  senses  lest 
he  had  lost  his  eyes,  vapouring,  however,  as  he 
went  what  he  would  do;  for  which  I  had  only 
one  answer,  that  I  would  give  him  ten  times  as 
much  if  he  did  anything  at  all. 

From  this  moment  I  was  treated  with  great  def- 
erence as  far  as  coming  into  contact  with  me 
went,  for  wht-n  I  approached  the  fire  every  body 
retired  a  little  to  make  room  for  me.  To  give 
them  an  idea  that  I  attached  no  sort  of  impor- 


tance to  what  had  taken  piace,  I  began  to  con- 
verse quietly  with  some  of  the  bystanders  about 
the  country,  and  whilst  doing  this,  the  poor  devil 
was  brought  in  from  the  kitchen,  by  his  whisk- 
ered friend  and  some  others,  with  his  head 
bound  up,  and  accompanied  by  them  went  out 
of  the  door,  but  whether  to  the  doctor's  or  the 
magistrate's  remained  to  be  seen.  I  now  told  my 
son  in  French  to  be  upon  the  watch  and  to  bring; 
me  information  of  what  was  going  on.  In  the 
mean  time  the.  Dr.  W*****,  of  South  Carolina, 
whose  conduct  had  not  prejudiced  me  in  his  fa- 
vour, having  found  out  who  I  was,  came  in  a 
very  friendly  manner  to  my  son  and  myself,  ex- 

flained  his  behaviour,  and  secretly  told  us  that 
ought  to  be  on  my  guard,  as  it  was  very  proba- 
ble an  attempt  would  be  made  to  injure  me.  I 
was  not  particularly  afraid  of  this :  what  I  was 
really  afraid  of  was  that  they  would  attempt  to 
hold  me  to  bail  in  a  large  sum.  I  was  quite 
sure  of  my  man.  He  would  not  neglect  such  a 
favourable  opportunity  of  turning  his  eyes  to  ac- 
count, and  I  should  have  been  too  happy  to  have 
compromised  the  affair  by  immediately  paying- 
one  hundred  dollars  for  each  of  my  offending 
fists.  But  the  parties  returned  to  the  tavern  evi- 
dently disappointed:  they  had,  it  seems,  been  to 
consult  some  limbs  of  the  law  who  resided  in  the 
place,  but,  most  fortunately  for  me,  every  crea- 
ture that  could  assist  them'in  the  legal  way  was 
gone  to  a  court  at  some  distance.  Supper  now 
was  announced,  and  we  went  to  it  grave  enough  • 
not  a  word  was  said.  The  landlord,  the  land- 
lady, the  travellers,  the  drivers,  and  the  negroes, 
first  stared  at  the  wounded  hero,  who  was  affec- 
tionately fed  by  his  black-haired,  piratical-look- 
ing friend,  and  then  at  me.  I  have  not  the  least 
doubt  that  all  agreed  in  considering  me  as  the 
greatest  monster  that  had  yet  penetrated  into 
Tennessee.* 

I  was  the  first  that  retired  from  the  supper- 
room,  and  immediately  proceeded  to  my  old 
place  at  the  fireside  of  the  bar-room.  As  soon, 
as  they  had  all  re-assembled  there,  I  addressed 
the  landlord  and  the  company,  stating  that  it  was 
the  practice  of  gentlemen  always  to  apologize 
when  they  were  provoked  to  use  violence;  that 
I  therefore  apologized  to  him  and  to  them  all; 
but  that  as  I  had  been  called  a  rascal  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life,  and  that  by  a  man  much 
younger  than  myself,  who  had  taken  great  pains 
to  quarrel  with  me,  it  was  very  natural  in  me  to 
chastise  him  on  the  spot,  as  I  dared  to  say  any 
one  of  them  would  have  been  manly  enough  to 
have  done  upon  a  like  occasion:  that  I  really 
was  sorry  for  what  I  had  done,  but  that  I  was 
quite  sure  I  should  do  the  same  thing  over  again 
if  I  was  insulted  in  the  same  way.  1  next  went 
up  to  the  man  himself,  and  told  him,  in  a  friendly 
tone,  that  I  was  exceedingly  distressed  to  see 
that  he  was  so  very  much  bruised,  that  I  wished 
it  had  not  been  done,  and  would  most  willingly 
undo  it  if  it  were  in  my  power;  but  that  he  must 
be  sensible  that  he  had  made  me  very  angry,  and 
that  most  men  when  angry  took  some  revenge  or 
other,  and  my  way  of  revenging  myself  wa-s 
much  better  than  using  dirks  or  pistols,  which 
either  killed  or  injured  people  for  life:  that  he 
would  soon  get  well,  and  would  then  be  no  worse 


*  I  learnt  afterwards  that  the  affair  had  reached  the  ears 
of  my  friends  at  Abingdon,  with  a  slight  change  in  some  of 
the  particulars  ;  the  Englishman  was  represented  as  having- 
struck  at  a  peaceable  American  gentleman  with  a  dirt,  then 
knocked  him  down  with  the  butt  end  of  a  pistol,  concluding 
the  assault  by  lumping  u  ou  him  to  gouge  him. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


45 


for  the  blows  I  had  given  him,  arid  that  I  hoped 
he  would  do  as  Englishmen  did,  forget  and  For- 
give, especially  as  I  was  very  sorry  to  see  him 
so  mueh  hurt,  and  was  ready  to  compensate  him. 

This  fellow  was  not  so  bad  but  that  he  had 
some  good  feeling  in  him;  perhaps,  too,  there 
\vas  a  little  unction  in  the  word  "  compensation," 
for  he  no  sooner  heard  it  than  he  blubbered  out, 
"  1  didn't  mean  to  say  that  you  ain't  a  gentle- 
man, and  I  am  quite  willing  to  be  friendly:" 
adding  that  his  name  was  G*****,  and  that  he 
was  from  Tuscaloosa,  in  the  State  of  Alabama. 
Whereupon  we  shook  hands  and  retired  to  our 
rooms.  Being  relieved  from  my  apprehensions 
of  having  to  deal  with  Tennessee  lawyers,  I  went 
to  bed  and  got  a  capital  night's  rest.  This  man 
•was  a  singular  compound  of  pomposity  and  ig- 
norance, boiling  over  with  conceit  of  himself 
until  this  incident  occurred,  which  I  have  no 
doubt  was  an  excellent  lesson  for  him. 

On  coming  down  at  one  A.M.  into  the  bar- 
Toom,  I  was  surprised  to  learn,  contrary  to  my 
expectation,  that  he,  with  his  whiskered  friend, 
•was  to  proceed  on  in  the  stage-coach  with  us, 
having  been  before  given  to  understand  that  he 
•was  to  leave  us  here,  which  the  two  South  Caro- 
linians did.  When  he  made  his  apperance,  I 
was  not  a  little  shocked  to  see  how  horribly  his 
face  was  disfigured,  and  felt  great  remorse  for 
the  blows  1  had  given  him.  On  getting  into  the 
stage-coach — there  being  now  room  for  my  son 
— matters  after  daylight  took  a  surprising  change. 
I  was  treated  with  the  greatest  respect,  especially 
by  my  black-eyed  friend;  and  whenever  I  lifted 
up  my  mauleys,  even  for  the  most  innocent  pur- 
poses, the  gentleman  in  mourning  used  to  ob- 
serve them  very  curiously,  as  though  he  was  not 
quite  satisfied  as  to  the  part  they  were  going  to 
perform.  We,  however,  contrived  to  be  on 
friendly  terms ;  and  all  danger  of  quarrelling,  at 
any  rate,  seemed  to  be  at  an  end.  It  was  day- 
light when  we  arrived  at  a  place  called  King's 
Port,  on  the  Holston,  which  is  here  a  pretty 
.stream,  navigable  for  boats.  I  obtained  some 
fine  unios  during  the  short  time  we  stopped;  and 
observed  a  great  many  concamerated  shells  in 
the  limestone  beds  on  the  road-side,  especially 
orthocera  of  a  large  size,  but  too  firmly  imbedded 
to  be  taken  out  without  much  preparation.  We 
had  the  Iron  Mountains  on  our  left,  extending 
S.W.  to  Georgia ;  and  passed  through  an  undu- 
lating country,  not  very  fertile,  with  limestone 
hummocks,  poor  log-huts,  inhabited  by  a  rude 
people,  and  all  the  signs  of  an  unproductive 
country. 

Rogersville,  twenty-five  miles  farther  west, 
has  a  few  brick  houses ;  and  the  land  about  there 
is  generally  formed  of  hummocks  of  limestone, 
dipping  S.S.E.  about  45°.  The  rjdges  at  this 
place  behind  the  settlement  are  constituted  of 
slate,  apparently  contemporaneous  with  that 
•which  underlies  the  Sweet  Springs  Valley.  I 
took  a  peep  at  the  dinner-table  here,  where  there 
was  an  old  woman  smoking  a  bad  pipe,  my  trav- 
elling companions,  and  the  driver;  before  them 
•was  a  nasty-looking  dish,  with  quantities  of 
coarse  onions ;  but  everything  looked  so  disgust- 
ing and  filthy,  that  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind 
to  sit  down,  and  preferred  to  go  without  any  din- 
ner. Here  a  great  many  sympathising  inquiries 
were  made  respecting  the  reasons  which  had 
compelled  the  Tuscaloosan  to  wrap  up  his  head 
so  curiously,  and  he  gave  the  old  tobacco-pipe 
lady  a  piteous  account  of  the  stage  being  run 
away  with,  and  how  he  had  been  thrown  against 


a  tree.  Unfortunately  the  driver,  who  knew  the 
truth,  took  this  as  a  reflection  upon  the  stage- 
driving  fraternity,  and  not  only  related  the  true 
story  before  he  came  away,  but  gave  it  as  his 
opinion  that  "he  was  a  poor  etarnal  scamp,  and 
that  that  'ar  Englishman  had  given  him  a  most 
almighty  hiding  that  he  hoped  would  last  him 
till  the  lost  kayws  (cows)  would  come  ham." 
The  truth  is  that  the  poor  devil  was  a  pretty  bad 
fellow  at  bottom,  had  a  wonderful  fertility  of  in- 
vention, which  enabled  him  to  tell  the  most  ex- 
traordinary lies  to  inquirers  about  his  accident, 
and  was  so  totally  insensible  to  his  disgrace,  that 
when  he  was  in  the  stage  he  soon  got  up  his 
spirits,  and  conducted  himself  as  if  nothing  had 
happened  to  him. 

We  took  various  passengers  in  whilst  on  the 
road  for  short  distances,  and  for  each  of  them  he 
had  almost  a  different  story:  but  it  was  of  no 
avail ;  the  first  driver  from  Blountsville  had  spoil- 
ed all  his  inventions  by  telling  the  truth,  and 
speaking  of  him  with  the  greatest  contempt. 
When  we  had  made  seventy  miles  from  Blounts- 
ville, we  stopped  to  get  a  little  rest  at  a  place 
called  Williams's,  two  miles  from  Bean's  Sta- 
tion. Here  the  Tuscaloosan  and  his  whiskered 
friend  got  into  the  same  bed  together.  The  next 
morning  we  drove  twenty  miles  to  a  house  kept 
by  a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Shields,  two  well-behaved 
people,  who  gave  us  a  clean  comfortable  break- 
last,  during  which  a  musical-box,  enclosed  in  a 
large  case  with  a  sounding-board,  was  playing 
most  delightfully.  In  an  adjoining  room  was 
laid  his  brother,  who  had  got  a  concussion  of  the 
brain  a  week  before,  in  escaping  from  the  stage- 
coach whilst  the  horses  were  running  away  with 
it  in  a  narrow  road  in  the  woods.  He  was  get- 
ting a  little  better,  after  remaining  three  days  in- 
sensible, but  was  still  delirious  at  times. 

About  noon  we  reached  Knoxville,  a  poor 
neglected-looking  place,  which  notwithstanding 
makes  a  great  figure  on  the  map.  I  saw  some 
tolerable  dwelling-houses,  and  called  upon  a 
gentleman  of  the  name  of  Campbell,  to  whom  I 
had  a  letter,  and  who  was  very  polite  to  me ;  but 
we  only  stayed  an  hour,  just  long  enough  to  let 
the  passengers  dine  at  the  tavern.  I  also  called 
upon  a  very  worthy  and  well-known  gentleman 
with  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  being  acquaint- 
ed, Judge  Hugh  White,  a  senator  of  the  United 
States,  who  resides  here ;  but  he  was  from  home. 
There  is  steam-boat  navigation  from  Knoxville 
down  the  Holston  and  Tennessee  into  the  Mis- 
sissippi when  the  water  is  high  enough  ;  but,  to 
judge  from  the  inactivity  of  the  place,  there  is 
very  little  commerce  going  on.  Fourteen  miles 
farther  we  came  to  Campbell's  Station,  a  place 
where  the  white  settlers  used  to  assemble,  after 
they  had  first  penetrated  into  these  remote  parts, 
to  chastise  the  Indians.  As  we  drove  up  to  the 
door  of  the  tavern,  I  saw  General  Jackson,  the 
venerable  President  of  the  United  States,  seated 
at  a  window  smoking  his  long  pipe,  and  went 
to  pay  my  respects  to  him,  apologising  for  my 
dirty  appearance,  which  I  told  him  I  had  very 
honestly  come  by  in  hammering  the  rocks  of  his 
own  State.  He  laughed  and  shook  hands  cor- 
dially with  me ;  and  learning  that  my  son  was 
with' me,  requested  me  to  bring  him  in  and  pre- 
sent him.  My  son,  who  had  been  scampering 
about  the  country  all  the  time  we  were  in  Knox- 
ville, was  in  a  worse  pickle  than  myself,  and 
felt  quite  ashamed  to  be  presented  to  so  eminent 
a  person;  but  the  old  General  very  kindly  took 
him  by  the  hand,  and  said,  "  My  young  friend, 


46 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


don't  be  ashamed  of  this  :  if  you  were  a  politi 
cian,  you  would  have  dirty  work  upon  your 
hands  you  could  not  so  easily  get  rid  of."  We 
had  a  Very  agreeable  chat  with  the  old  gentle- 
man ;  he  was  in  fine  spirits ;  and  we  left  his  cheer- 
ful conversation  with  great  reluctance,  amidst 
the  kindest  expression  of  his  wishes  for  our  wel- 
fare, and  an  injunction  to  call  upon  him  at  Wash- 
ington as  soon  as  we  returned.  The  President 
was  then  on  his  way  to  the  seat  of  government. 


CHAPTER  XL 

A  Negro-Driver  in  mourning  for  a  great  Patriot — Irrever- 
ence of  a  Negro  to  a  White  Man's  Ghost — Bivouac  of  a 
Gang  of  chained  Slaves— An  agreeable  and  lively  fellow- 
passenger— Cross  the  Cumberland  Mountains — Arrive  at 
Sparta— A  Driver  killed— Hickory  Valley— Mounds  and 
Graves  of  the  Indians  that  formerly  dwelt  here — Imagin- 
ary pigmy  race. 

ON  resuming  our  places  in  the  stage-coach,  our 
companion  in  black  pronounced  a  most  decided 
eulogium  upon  Gineral  Jackson,  but  in  such  lan- 
guage as  was  quite  inimitable.  With  a  strange 
solemnity  of  tone  and  manner,  he  said,  "  The  old 
Gineral  is  the  most  greatest  and  most  completes! 
idear  of  a  man  what  had  ever  lived.  I  don't 
mean  to  say  nothing  agin  Washington — he  was 
a  man  too  ;  but  Jackson  is  a  man,  I  tell  you :  and 
when  I  see'd  him  in  his  old  white  hat,  with  the 
mourning  crape  on  it,  it  made  me  feel  a  kind  of 
particular  curious."  This  mysterious  sympa- 
thy betwixt  the  two  white  hats  in  mourning 
opened  a  vein  of  sentiment  in  our  companion 
that  presently  took  a  very  sublimated  form,  and 
he  commenced  thinking  aloud  as  it  were,  keep- 
ing his  right  hand  pressed  on  the  thigh  of  the 
Tuscaloosan.  He  now  attempted  to  cover  a  far- 
rago of  bad  grammar  with  an  affected  pronunci- 
ation of  his  words:  and  at  last  got  into  such  a 
strain  of  talking  fine,  that  my  son  and  myself  had 
great  difficulty  in  suppressing  our  laughter.  He 
spoke  of  a  niece  that  he  had.  and  said,  in  quite 
a  staccato  style,  "She — is — a — most — complete 
— "  and  there  he  rather  equivocally  left  the  mat- 
ter, adding,  however,  that  he  had  given  her  "  a 
most  beautiful  barouche,"  and  that  he  expected 
to  overtake  her  that  night.  By  and  by,  he  said 
he  expected  to  overtake  another  barouche  which 
belonged  to  him  ;  and  then  told  us  what  the  two 
barouches  had  cost  him.  In  short,  he  so  thor- 
oughly mystified  us,  that  we  could  not  make  out 
what  stratum  in  society  he  belonged  to.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  these  barouches,  we  might  have 
conjectured,  but  they  threw  us  out.  We  knew 
we  had  no  barouches  on  the  road,  and  were  dis- 
posed to  respect  anyone  who  had,  for  a  barouche 
is  a  barouche  always;  and  what  must  a  man  be 
who  has  two  on  the  road,  and  "  a  complete"  in 
one  of  them? 

A  vague  idea  had  once  or  twice  crossed  my 
mind  that  I  had  seen  this  man  before,  but  where 
I  could  not  imagine.  On  coming,  however,  to 
a  long  hill,  where  I  got  out  to  walk,  I  took  occa- 
sion to  ask  the  driver  if  he  knew  who  the  pas- 
senger was  who  had  two  barouches  on  before. 
"Why,"  said  the  man,  "don't  you  know  it's 
Armfield,  the  negur-driverl"  "Negur-driver!" 
thought  I,  and  immediately  the  mystery  was 
cleared  up.  I  remembered  the  white  hat,  the 
crape,  the  black,  short-cut,  round  hair,  and  the 
barouches.  It  was  one  of  the  identical  slave- 
dealers  I  had  seen  on  the  6th  of  September,  cross- 
ing his  gang  of  chained  slaves  over  New  River. 
On  re-entering  the  vehicle  1  looked  steadily  at 


the  fellow,  and  recollecting  him,  found  no  longer 
any  difficulty  in  accounting  for  such  a  compound 
of  everything  vulgar  and  revolting,  and  totally 
without  education.  I  had'  now  a  key  both  to  his 
manners  and  the  expression  of  his  countenance, 
both  of  them  formed  in  those  dens  of  oppression 
and  despair,  the  negro  prisons,  and  both,  of  them 
indicating  his  abominable  vocation. 

As  he  had  endeavoured  to  impose  himself  upon 
us  for  a  respectable  man,  I  was  determined  to  let 
him  know  before  we  parted  that  I  had  found  him 
out;  but  being  desirous  first  of  discovering  what 
was  the  source  of  that  sympathy  which  united  his 
hat  with  that  of  General  Jackson,  I  asked  him. 
plump  who  he  was  in  mourning  for.  Upon  this, 
drawing  his  physiognomy  down  to  the  length  ol 
a  moderate  horse's  face,  "Marcus -Layfeeyate" 
(Marquis  Lafayette)  was  his  answer.  "  Do  you 
mean  General  Lafayette  ?"*  1  inquired.  "  I 
reckon  that's  what  I  mean,"  said  he.  "  Whyx 
General  Lafayette,"  I  replied,  "gloried  in  ma- 
king all  men  free,  without  respect  of  colour;  and 
what  are  you,  who  I  understand  are  a  negro-dri- 
ver, in  mourning  for  him  for1?  Such  men  as 
you  ought  to  go  into  mourning  only  when  the 
price  of  black  men  falls.  I  remember  seeing  you 
cross  your  gang  in  chains  at  New  River ;  and  I 
shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  if  Lafayette's  ghost 
was  to  set  every  one  of  your  negroes  free  one  of 
^hese  nights." 

The  fellow  did  not  expect  this,  and  was  silent, 
DUI  my  son  burst  into  a  violent  fit  of  laughter ; 
and,  to  add  to  our  amusement,  the  negur-driver's 
ilack  man — who  had  been  vastly  tickled  with, 
the  idea  of  the  ghost  coming  to  help  the  negurs 
— boiled  over  into  a  moststentorious  horse-laugh 
of  the  African  kind.  His  enraged  master  now 
broke  out,  "  What  onder  arth  is 'the  matter  with 
you,  I  reckon"?  If  you  think  I'll  stand  my  wait- 
er's sniggering  at  me  arter  that  fashion,  I  reck- 
on you'll  come  to  a  nonplush  to-night."  These 
awful  words,  which  Pompey  knew  imported  very 
serious  consequences,  brought  him  immediately 
into  a  graver  mood,  and  he  very  contritely  said, 
:(  Master,  I  warn't  a  larfing  at  you,  by  no  man- 
ner of  means ;  I  was  just  a  larfing  at  what  dat  ar 
gemmelman  said  about  de  ghose."  Soon  after 
his  the  fellow  pretended  he  was  taken  ill,  and* 
determined  to  stop  at  a  tavern  on  the  road,  a  few 
miles  from  Bean's  Station.  He  accordingly  told 
Pompey  to  go  on  with  the  stage-coach  until  he 
overtook  the  gang,  and  then  to  return  for  him. 
with  one  of  the  barouches. 

Here  we  left  him  to  digest  our  contempt  as 
well  as  he  could.  Pompey  now  told  us  a  great 
many  things  that  served  to  confirm  my  abhor- 
•ence  of  this  brutal  land-traffic  in  slaves.  As  to 
lis  master,  he  said  he  really  thought  he  was  ill  ;• 
'Master's  mighty  fond  of  ingeons,"  said  he, 

and  de  doctors  in  Alexandria  tells  him  not  to 
eat  sich  lots  of  ingeons ;  but  when  he  sees  'em 
ie  can't  stand  it,  and  den  he  eats  'ern,  and  dey 
makes  him  sick,  and  den  he  carries  on  jist  like 
a  house  a  fire;  and  den  he  drinks  brandy  upon 
'em,  and  dat  makes  him  better;  and  den  he  eats 
ngeons  agin,  and  so  he  keeps  a  carrying  on." 
i-Yom  which  it  would  appear  that  the  sum  total 
)f  enjoyment  of  a  negro-driver,  purchased  at 
itich  a  profligate  expense  of  humanity,  is  an  un- 
imited  indulgence  in  onions  and  brandy. 

Before  we  stopped  for  the  night,  but  long  after 
unset,  we  came  to  a  place  where  numerous 


He  died  in  the  early  part  of  the  summer,  and  many  of 
friends  in  the  United  States  were  in  mourning  on  the 
occasion. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


17 


fires  were  gleaming  through  the  forest:  it  was 
the  bivouac  of  the  gang.  Having  prevailed  upon 
the  driver  to  wait  half  an  hour,  I  went  with  Pom- 
pey — who  was  to  take  leave  of  us  here — into  the 
woods,  where  they  were  all  encamped.  There 
were  a  great  many  blazing  fires  around,  at  which 
the  female  slaves  were  warming  themselves;  the 
children  were  asleep  in  some  tents;  and  the 
males,  in  chains,  were  lying  on  the  ground,  in 
groups  of  about  a  dozen  each.  The  white  men, 
who  were  the  partners  of  Pompey's  master,  were 
standing  about  with  whips  in  their  hands;  and 
"the  complete"  was,  I  suppose,  in  her  tenc;  for 
I  judged,  from  the  attendants  being  busy  in  pack- 
ing the  utensils  away,  that  they  had  taken  their 
evening's  repast.  It  was  a  fearful  and  irritating 
spectacle',  and  I  could  not  bear  long  to  look  at  it. 

Our  company,  on  my  return  to  the  stage-coach, 
•^ras  reduced  to  ourselves  and  the  now  humble 
Tuscaloosan.  We  were  kind  to  him,  lest  the 
poor  devil  should  feel  unnecessarily  uncomfort- 
able. After  a  rough  ride  in  the  dark  over  an 
execrable  road,  we  came  to  a  poor  miserable 
house  where  the  sheriff  lived,  and  where  we 
were  told  we  might  lie  down  until  four  A.M. 
But  such  beds !  We  were  charged  12£  cents,  or 
6d.  each,  for  the  privilege  of  lying  down  upon 
them,  whilst  we  should  have  been  most  happy 
to  have  given  ten  times  as  much  for  clean  ones. 
But  as  the  great  study  here  appears  to  be  to  spare 
themselves  trouble  and  exertion,  they  content 
themselves  with  putting  a  pack  of  dirty  rags  to- 
gether, calling  it  a  bed,  and  then  leave  it  in  the 
same  state  throughout  the  year.  A  better  spe- 
cimen of :t  cheap  and  nasty"  could  not  easily  be 
found.  In  the  morning  we  started  again  at  day- 
light, and  reached  the  junction  of  the  Clinch  and 
Holston  where  they  form  the  Tennessee,  at  a 
poor  place  called  Kingston.  The  country  now 
began  to  teem  with  graves  and  mounds  of  the 
Indians  who  once  possessed  the  country,  and  to 
become  very  interesting. 

Early  in  the  morning  a  passenger  joined  us, 
who  turned  out  to  be  a  very  agreeable  and  di- 
verting person.  I  saw  at  once  he  was  not  an 
American ;  for,  although  he  had  a  sallow  face, 
it  was  round,  and  his  nose  and  a  certain  expres- 
sion of  his  countenance,  added  to  the  native  po- 
liteness of  his  manners,  marked  him  fora  French- 
man. We  conversed  some  time  in  English, 
which  he  spoke  tolerably  well ;  he  had  been  on 
the  Mississippi  River,  "and  knew  most  of  the 
towns  there  familiarly.  In  the  course  of  our 
conversation  I  happened  to  mention  the  village 
of  St.  Genevieve,  and  giving  it  the  French  pro- 
nunciation, he  broke  out,  "Ah,  Monsieur,  je 
vais  bien  que  vous  parlez  Franpais — je  parle 
Anglais  moi  comme  un  animal,  je  le  sais  bien — 
parlons  Fran<;ais  s'il  vous  plait."  From  this 
moment  we  talked  nothing  but  French,  except 
when  our  lively  companion  addressed  the  Tus- 
caloosan, who,  having  removed  the  handkerchief 
from  his  head,  exhibited  his  black  eyes  in  full 
relief.  His  odd  appearance  greatly  attracted  the 
Frenchman's  attention,  who,  in  a  very  sympa- 
thetic tone,  inquired  as  to  the  cause  of  it.  We 
had  now  the  old  story  of  the  stage  being  upset, 
and  Monsieur  fully  believing  he  had  been  in- 
jured in  that  way,  could  scarce  contain  himself, 
exclaiming,  " De  Americain  drivaire  in  de South- 
ern State  is  an  infamious  animal!"  and  then 
proceeded  in  the  most  voluble  manner  to  tell  us 
of  some  narrow  escapes  he  had  had  with  drunk- 
en drivers.  It  appeared  to  me  that  there  was 
not  a  place  in  the  Southern  and  Western  States 


where  this  Frenchman  had  not  been ;  I  h;id  only 
to  look  at  the  map  and  mention  a  place,  wliea 
he  would  say,  "Monsieur,  je  eonnais  cet  endroit 
la  parfaitement ;  il  y  a  un  tel  qui  derneure  la  et 
un  tel."  And  to  my  inquiries  he  would  answer,. 
"  Oui,  Monsieur,  il  y  a  bien  de  montagnes,  mais 
pas  comme  celle  du  Cumberland,  que  vous  allez. 
traverser."  Or  else  it  would  be, "  Non,  ce  pays 
la  est  plat  comme  ma  main." 

After  a  few  hours  of  this  sort  of  conversation,. 
I  perhaps  felt  as  curious  to  know  what  his  pur- 
suits could  be  that  had  led  him  to  so  many  pla- 
ces where  he  knew  so  many  people,  as  he  was- 
to  know  mine  who  made  so  many  inquiries  about 
the  surface  of  the  country.  Apparently  his  cu- 
riosity was  more  lively  than  mine,  for  he  made 
many  attempts,  though  always  with  politeness, 
to  penetrate  my  secret,  and  once  or  twice  went 
rather  far  on  the  road  towards  finding  out  who  I 
was.  At  last,  without  telling  him  my  name,  I 
informed  him  that  I  was  an  Englishman,  and 
that  my  pursuits  were  purely  confined  to  geology 
and  natural  history.  He  was  delighted  with  this- 
mark  of  confidence,  and  said,  "Monsieur,  je  ne 
connois  pas  les  sciences,  mais  je  les  honore  ;  et 
je  suisbien  aisede  rencontrer  un  brave  Anglais, 
car  je  les  estime  tous  de  tout  mon  creur."  He 
now  proceeded  to  tell  me  who  he  was  and  what 
he  was,  and  what  sort  of  a  person  his  wife  was,, 
how  long  he  had  been  married  to  her,  and  what 
age  she  was  when  she  became  his  wife.  "  Oui, 
Monsieur,"  said  he,  "c'etoit  une  jeune  personne 
charmante,  pleine  de  bonte,  et  je  puis  dire  que 
je  1'aime  de  tout  mon  cceur."  His  name  was 
Nidelet,  he  was  a  silk  merchant  of  Philadelphia, 
had  married  a  daughter  of  a  respectable  French 
hegociant,  a  Monsieur  Pratte,of  the  town  of  St. 
Louis,  on  the  Mississippi,  and  was  at  this  time 
engaged,  as  he  had  often  before  been,  in  collect- 
ing debts  due  to  his  house,  which  accounted  for 
his  accurate  knowledge  of  the  country.  In  the 
course  of  the  day  the  driver,  it  appeared,  told 
him  how  the  Tuscalbosan  had  got  his  black  eyes. 
which  had  exceedingly  sharpened  his  curiosity 
to  know  who  I  was;  and  on  coming  to  a  hill  he 
joined  my  son,  who  was  walking  up  it,  and  con- 
trived very  ingeniously  to  get  it  out  of  him.  On. 
re-entering  the  stage-coach^  therefore,  he  trium- 
phantly exclaimed,  "Ah,  ah,  Monsieur!  vous 
e"tes  done  Monsienr  F. :  j'ai  bien  entendu  parler 
de  vous  a  Philadelphie,  et  je  suis  enchante  de 
1'honneur  de  votre  connaissance.  C'est  vous 
done  qui  avez  flanque  a  ce  coquin  ces  gros  yeux 
— il  les  a  bien  merite.  Diable,  c'est  un  art  su- 
perbe  que  celui  de  boxer!  J'ai  pris  quelques 
lemons  moi-m^me,  mais  n'importe — je  voyage 
toujours  avec  des  pistolets  et  un  dirk — tenez! 
regardez!  Vraiment  vous  lui  avez  arrange  son. 
sacre  museau  joliment.  Peste,  comme  il  est 
beau.  II  parait  etre  votre  ami  a  present — ne 
vous  fiez  pas;  il  est  capable  de  trouver  son  mo- 
ment et  vous  planter  son  dirk.  Le  coquin,  j'au- 
rai  un  O3il  sur  lui — si  jamais  il  fait  le  moindre 
mouvement,  je  lui  regale  un  coup  de  pistolet  an 
museau."  The  poor  devil  who  was  the  object 
of  this  rhapsody  saw,  by  the  excited  looks  and 
gestures  of  the  Frenchman,  that  he  was  blown, 
and  at  the  next  hill  took  his  seat  with  the  driver, 
and  never  came  into  the  stage  again,  so  that  we 
had  nothing  more  to  do  with  him. 

We  commenced  the  ascent  of  Walden's  Ridge 
to-day,  which  is  on  the  east  flank  of  Cumber- 
land Mountain,  and  is  separated  from  the  west- 
ern flank  by  a  depression  or  valley.  Proceeding- 
along  a  disintegrating  sandstone,  we  came  to  a 


TRAVELS  IX  AMERICA. 


place  called  the  Crab  Orchard,  from  the  first 
white  pioneers  finding  crab  apple-trees  (Mains 
coronaria)  here.  A  few  miles  hence  the  mount- 
ain descends  again  rapidly  to  a  beautiful  cir- 
cular cove,  containing,  perhaps,  one  thousand 
acres.  This  is  a  singularly  romantic  and  pleas- 
ing vale,  perfectly  round,  and  surrounded  by  a 
mountainous  country,  the  hills,  as  well  as  the 
vale,  being  in  every  part  covered  with  graceful 
and  stately  trees.  The  Cumberland  Mountain, 
taken  altogether,  is,  where  we  passed  it  on  the 
way  to  Sparta,  a  sort  of  table-land  about  forty 
miles  broad,  with  occasional  depressions  in  it. 
Indications  present  themselves  here  of  rocks  of 
a  later  period  than  those  of  the  Alleghany  Ridge ; 
the  limestone  in  the  valleys  is  all  horizontal,  and 
on  each  flank  of  the  hills  the  same  strata  of 
sandstone  crop  out  as  we  ascend  and  descend 
them.  The  fossils  on  the  flat  tabular  limestone, 
which  consist  principally  of  producta,  spirifers, 
and  flustra,  increase  greatly  in  numbers,  but  do 
not  vary  much,  apparently,  in  genera,  from  those 
in  the  inclined  rocks  we  have  so  long  been  trav- 
ersing. The  descent  to  Sparta  is  rugged  for  one 
mile  and  a  half  over  the  mineral  beds,  and  on 
reaching  the  foot  of  the  mountain  I  observed  a 
change  in  the  botany  of  the  country,  as  well  as 
in  the  rocks.  The  flint  in  the  limestone  beds 
here  takes  an  agatized  form,  and  often  assumes 
a  beautiful  boytroidal  chalcedonic  appearance. 

Soon  after  we  had  got  upon  the  level  land,  we 
met  a  stage-coach  from  the  west  with  a  passen- 
ger severely  cut  in  the  face.  He  informed  us 
that  in  the  morning  the  driver  had  fallen  asleep 
on  his  seat,  and  dropping  from  it  upon  the  ground, 
the  wheels  had  gone  over  his  head  and  killed 
him  on  the  spot,  upon  which  the  horses  galloped 
off,  and  at  a  turn  of  the  road  ran  the  vehicle 
against  a  stump,  and  broke  the  stage  to  pieces  : 
he  was  thrown  against  some  trees,  and  narrowly 
escaped  with  his  life.  .  These  accidents  fre- 
quently happen,  for,  with  few  exceptions,  the 
drivers  are  a  reckless,  unmanageable  race  of 
fellows,  that  drink  hard,  and  care  nothing  even 
what  happens  to  themselves.  All  the  particu- 
lars of  this  sad  story  were  eagerly  listened  to  by 
the  Tuscaloosan,  whom  we  discovered  after- 
wards to  have  represented  himself  as  one  of  the 
injured  passengers  upon  that  occasion.  It  was 
late  at  night  before  we  reached  Sparta. 

Sparta  is  a  very  small  place,  not  exactly  upon 
a  Lacedaemonian  plan,  perhaps,  but  at  any  rate 
it  has  a  small  square  and  a  court-house.  As  to 
the  rest,  the  houses  were  miserably  shabby,  as 
well  as  the  stores.  Here  Idetermined  to  remain 
a  short  time,  as  the  country  was  very  interesting, 
arid  I  found  obliging  and  nice  people  at  the  tav- 
ern. The  next  morning  after  breakfast  I  re- 
turned to  the  Cumberland  Mountain  to  secure 
some  fossils  I  had  seen,  and  to  get  a  view  of  the 
country  from  the  summit.  From  the  west  brow 
of  the  mountain  a  bold  ledge  of  horizontal  sand- 
stone rocks  projects  from  a  great  distance,  form- 
ing a  natural  stone  terrace,  from  whence  there 
is  a  most  extensive  view  of  the  country ;  which, 
•with  the  exception  of  a  few  patches  of  cleared 
ground,  is  an  unreclaimed  wilderness.  There 
is  a  small  vein  of  bituminous  coal  not  very  far 
off,  with  two  strong  chalybeate  springs. 

On  the  17th  we  sallied  out  on  foot  to  a  place 
called  Hickory  Valley,  where  there  were  said  to 
be  a  great  many  coves  and  little  vales.  I  had 
heard  of  Indian  graves  of  a  peculiar  kind  that 
were  found  here,  and  was  desirous  of  inspecting 
them.  After  an  agreeable  walk  we  reached  the 


valley,  and  found  it  a  very  pleasing  place,  with 
fine  springs,  game  in  abundance,  flint  in  the 
limestone  strata  occurring  as  the  chalk-flints  do 
in  Europe,  and  everything  appropriate  for  the 
permanent  residence  of  a  tribe  of  Indians.  Mr. 
Turner  Lane,  an  old  resident  here,  to  whose 
plantation  we  went,  informed  us  that  when  the 
stumps  of  trees  in  his  clearings  became  suffi- 
ciently decayed  to  permit  them  to  plough  their 
fields  thoroughly,  the  coulters  frequently  tore  up 
square  blocks  of  limestone  and  human  bones. 
This  took  place  so  often,  that  at  last  their  curi- 
osity was  excited,  and  they  perceived  that  these 
blocks  were  parts  of  stone  coffins,  consisting  of 
a  bottom-piece  laid  flat  on  the  ground,  two  side 
pieces,  a  foot  and  head-piece,  and  a  lid  laid  on 
the  top. 

The  extreme  length  of  these  graves  was  24 
inches,  some  of  them  were  only  15  inches  long, 
and  others  even  less,  and  the  coffins  were  sunk 
not  more  than  a  foot  in  the  ground.  It  had 
struck  him  and  other  persons  as  a  curious  fact, 
that  amidst  so  great  a  number  of  graves  there 
should  not  be  one  longer  than  24  inches,  and  he 
determined,  therefore,  in  concert  with  a  Mr. 
Doyle — a  neighbour  of  his  who  inhabited  an- 
other cove  about  four  miles  from  his  residence 
— to  examine  into  the  matter  with  great  care. 
They  accordingly  opened  some  graves,  and  first 
removed  the  stones  before  they  disturbed  the 
contents  of  the  coffins,  which  were  filled  appa- 
rently with  nothing  but  the  common  soil  of  the 
country.  Having  removed  this  carefully  with 
their  knives,  they  found  that  each  grave  con- 
tained a  skeleton,  supported  by  a  sufficient  quan- 
tity of  earth  to  prevent  the  bones  falling  into  a 
heap.  The  skeletons  were  uniformly  laid  on  the 
right  side,  and  drawn  up  somewhat  as  people 
sleep,  the  right  side  reposing  on  the  right  arm. 
Under  the  neck  they  uniformly  found  an  earthen 
Indian  pot,  formed  (as  I  afterwards  found)  of 
clay  and  fragments  of  the  unio,  which,  being 
saturated  with  moisture,  generally  fell  to  pieces, 
but  when  carefully  taken  out  and  dried,  would 
become  hard  again.  Mr.  Lane  and  his  friends 
were  now  convinced — as  they  still  are — that  they 
had  discovered  an  ancient  race  of  pigmies  that 
had  been  buried  in  this  valley  before  the  exist- 
ing forest  had  grown  up ;  and  the  story  setting 
out,  some  country  doctors  and  curious  people 
came  to  the  place,  and  finding  the  dentification 
of  the  jaws  perfect,  and  the  sutures  of  the  cra- 
nia complete,  they  pronounced  the  skulls  and 
bones  to  have  belonged,  not  to  children  of  the 
ordinary  Indian  race,  but  to  adults  of  a  pigmy 
race.  A  book  was  next  written  about  it,  and 
it  became  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  western 
country. 

Having  heard  Mr.  Lane's  account  of  the  af- 
fair, we  walked  over  to  see  Mr.  Doyle,  and  hear 
what  he  had  to  say. 

On  our  way  we  stopped  to  examine  some  an- 
cient mounds  almost  obliterated  by  time,  with 
very  old  forest  trees  growing  upon  them.  We 
found  Mr.  Doyle  at  home,  living  very  comfort- 
ably in  his  beautiful  cove,  where  he  had  cleared 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  land.  He 
gave  us  precisely  the  same"  information  we  had 
received  from  Mr.  Lane,  only  observing  that  the 
graves  were  much  more  numerous  on  his  farm, 
and  that  lie.  had  been  the  first  person  to  suppose 
them  filled  by  a  pigmy  race.  He  said  he  had 
opened  at  least  one  hundred  of  them,  and  that 
they  resembled  each  other  in  everything,  save 
that  in  the  shortest  of  them  the  bones  were  ex- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMEEICA. 


49 


tremely  decayed,  and  the  skulls  contained  no 
teeth ;  whence  he  inferred  that  these  were  the 
graves  of  pigmy  children.  I  now  examined  sev- 
eral of  the  coffins  he  had  opened,  and  measured 
them,  and  found  that  there  was  not  one  of  them 
longer  than  24  inches,  or  deeper  than  9.  Hav- 
ing seen  these  1  proceeded,  with  his  permission, 
to  open  one  of  the  graves  myself  that  had  been 
untouched.  The  skeleton  was  there,  with  an  ex- 
tremely thin  cranium  without  teeth :  the  bones 
•were  suprisingly  small,  and  it  was  evident  the 
body  had  been  laid  on  its  right  side,  and  packed 
in  earth.  A  small  pot  was  under  the  neck  which 
crumbled  to  pieces  on  being  touched,  and  I  found 
a  rib  of  a  deer  with  a  snail  shell,  that  had  also 
been  put  into  the  grave,  In  most  of  these  coffins 
Mr.  Doyle  had  found  some  shells,  and  some 
small  perforated  stones,  which  had  probably  been 
used  for  a  collar  to  put  round  the  child's  neck. 
On  going  to  Mr.  Dovle's  house  he  presented  me 
•with  some  of  the  shells  found  in  them,  which 
•were  Fusus  fluvialis,  a  univalve,  found  in  the 
neighbouring  Holston.  Whilst  rambling  about 
we  came  to  a  very  strong  ledge  of  sandstone 
rocks  which  had  a  sort  of  cavern  beneath  them: 
on  looking  into  it  we  saw  the  bones  of  another 
skeleton,  and  contrived  to  get  the  cranium  out ; 
it  was  full  of  teeth,  and  had  a  hole  in  it  which  it 
was  evident  enough  had  been  made  by  a  toma- 
hawk. 

'  Before  we  parted  with  Mr.  Doyle  I  essayed  to 
undeceive  him  about  the  pigmy  race,  and  told 
him  it  was  the  custom  with  a  great  many  tribes 
of  Western  Indians  to  expose  their  adult  dead 
upon  scaffolds,  and  when  all  the  soft  parts  had 
•wasted  away,  the  bones  of  the  skeleton  were  put 
into  very  short  graves  ;  that  if  he  would  consider 
the  size  of  the  oldest  skulls  he  had  found,  he 
would  see  that  they  had  belonged  to  individuals 
with  as  large  heads  as  our  own,  which  would 
have  been  both  inconvenient  and  unnecessary  to 
a  pigmy  race.  But  Mr.  Doyle  was  not  at  all 
pleased  to  have  his  wonder  taken  to  pieces  in 
this  way,  and  fought  for  his  pigmies  with  all  the 
pertinacity  of  an  inventor  of  genera  and  species 
for  shells,  who  has  never  seen  them  in  their 
habitats,  and  has  acquired  his  information  from 
dead  valves.  On  coming  away,  his  last  words 
were,  "You've  jist  got  the  wrong  notion,  and 
when  you  git  to  Nashville  you'd  better  talk  about 
something  else."  1  regretted  my  indiscretion, 
and  was  determined  henceforward  to  be  as  care- 
ful about  interfering  betwixt  a  man  and  his  pig- 
mie's  as  I  would  he  betwixt  a  man  and  his  wife. 

We  returned  to  Sparta  by  a  different  road,  and 
had  a  charming  walk  over  a  calcareous  spur  from 
the  Cumberland  Mountain,  passing  by  Simpson's 
Bridge  on  the  Calf-killer's  Creek  (so'called  from 
an  Indian  chief),  near  to  which  I  found  a  seam 
or  parting  in  the  limestone  of  argillaceo-calcare- 
ous  earth,  with  some  large  specimens  of  Apia 
crlnoidea.  We  reached  the  village  an  hour  after 
night. 

The  next  morning  I  prepareAto  go  to  a  place 
called  the  Wild  Cat's  Cove,  where  I  was  inform- 
ed there  were  great  numbers  of  Indian  graves 
and  mounds  ;  but  it  began  to  rain,  and  continued 
wet  the  whole  day.  I  therefore  devoted  the  time 
to  writing  and  arranging  my  fossils,  which  had 
accumulated  upon  my  hands.  In  the  evening 
my  kind  French  friend  gave  me  a  letter  to  his 
father-in-law  at  St.  Louis,  and  made  me  promise 
to  deliver  it  in  person.  Here  I  took  leave  of  him. 

During  the  few  days  I  had  oassed  at  Sparta, 
our  friend  Nidelet  always  used  to  come  and  visit 


us  in  the  evening.  Every  body  in  the  place  knew 
him,  and  he  knew  every  body;  and  1  believe  it 
was  in  part  owing  to  his  good  offices,  and  the 
manner  in  which  he  always  spoke  of  us,  that  so 
much  attention  was  paid  us,  in  having  horses 
placed  at  our  disposition  to  go  upon  our  excur- 
sions. He  was  not  pleased,  however,  with  the 
conduct  of  the  greater  part  of  his  debtors.  His 
house  at  Philadelphia  had  permitted  their  coun- 
try customers  about  here  to  take  silk  goods  to 
the  amount  of  70,000  dollars — a  very  large  sum, 
certainly,  for  one  house  to  trust  them  with  in 
only  one  branch  of  trade;  and  many  of  them  not 
only  told  him  they  could  not  pay,  b*ut  would  give 
him  no  security.  Upon  such  occasions  he  was 
very  prodigal  of  the  terms  "voleurs,  coquins, 
chicaneurs;"  and  used  to  say,  "Ces  gaillards 
sont  tousde  nieme ;  ils  ne  payeroient  jamais  s'ils 
ne  craignoient  pas  les  avocats,  qui  sont  voleurs 
de  m6me  calibre."  But,  generally  speaking,  he 
was  a  person  of  the  happiest  disposition,  had  a 
great  deal  of  drollery,  and  was  by  no  means 
wanting  in  good  sense  and  observation.  I  never 
met  with  any  one  better  fitted  to  get  along  in  such 
a  country ;  he  could  sleep  any  where  or  any  how, 
and  could  eat,  drink,  and  smoke  any  thing  and 
every  thing  that  came  in  his  way.  Once,  upon 
observing  that  I  was  rather  fastidious  about  the 
use  of  a  towel,  he  said,  "  Monsieur,  quant  a  moi, 
je  trouve  que  tout  est  bon,  quand  il  n'y  a  pas  de 
choix!" — a  happy  expression*,  that  merits  the  at- 
tention of  all  persons  travelling  in  frontier^m- 
tries.  He  was  a  person  of  unbounded  curiWty, 
and,  observing  that  I  attached  importance  to  the 
fossils  I  collected,  would  not  let  me  rest  until  I 
had  given  him  an  idea  of  the  general  scope  of 
geological  inquiry.  Often  would  he  interrupt 
me  by  exclaiming,  "Magnifique!  magnifique!" 
As  soon  as  we  had  emptied  our  pockets  in  the 
evening,  he  would  examine  every  thing,  and  ask, 
"Est-ce  que  ceci  6toit  avant  le  deluge1?"  And 
when  answered  in  the  affirmative,  would  say, 
"  Mis6ricorde !"  Then,  lifting  up  some  unios, 
he  would  add,  "Et  ceci?"  To  which  I  would 
answer,  "  No,  these  are  recent  shells  that  I  took 
from  the  river."  That  was  sufficient  for  them ; 
he  would  instantly  put  them  down,  saying,  "Ah, 
ce  n'est  rien  done !"  When  we  parted,  he  had 
just  made  such  felicitous  progress  in  the  science 
of  geology  as  to  entertain  the  most  sovereign  con- 
tempt for  every  thing  that  had  happened  since 
the  deluge.  "  Je  m'etonne  que  vous  ayez  de  la 
patience  avec  de  pareilles  b6tises,  mon  cher,"  he 
would  say;  a  dreadful  satire  upon  the  labours 
of  those  philosophers  who  have  forced  all  exist- 
ing things  that  are  scarcely  dissimilar  to  each 
other  into  different  genera  and  species,  and  have 
excluded  nothing  but  chimneys  and  haystacks 
from  nomenclatorial  classification. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Indian  practice  of  burning  the  Underwood  to  enaole.  the 
Natives  to  pursue  the  Game— The  Aboriginal  Races  to  be 

•  traced  by  their  Mounds— General  Jackson's  Plantation, 
the  Hermitage— His  character  by  a  Neighbour— Arrival 
at  Nashville 

ON  the  19th  of  September,  at  the  dawn  of  day, 
we  resumed  our  places  in  the  stage-coach  for 
Nashville,  passing  through  a  country  with  very 
much  the  same  character  as  that  about  Sparta, 
the  surface  being  occasionally  cut  up  into  ravines, 
and  the  road  made  rough  by  hummocks  of  lime- 
stone :  the  trees  also,  as  we  have  seen  them  in 


50 


TRAVELS  TN  AMERICA. 


other  places,  were  more  open  in  the  forests,  and 
had  abundance  of  wild  grass  growing  up  amongst 
them.  This  is  particularly  the  case  on  the  pla- 
teau of  the  Cumberland  Mountain,  where  an  im- 
mense pasturage  is  afforded  to  the  cattle.  This 
openness  of  the  woods  gives  a  park-like  appear- 
ance to  the  country,  and  enables  you  to  see 
through  the  forest  for  a  great  distance,  which  is 
very  pleasing.  The  white  men,  however,  having 
now  driven  the  ancient  race  out  of  their  country, 
the  underwood  is  beginning  to  spring  up  quite 
thick,  as  the  old  settlers  say,  in  comparison  to  its 
ancient  state. <  The  soil  was  always  prone  to 
produce  a  lofty  wild  grass;  and  as  this  prevent- 
ed the  Indians  from  seeing  and  pursuing  their 
game,  they  were  in  the  habit  of  annually  setting 
fire  to  it,  and  thus  kept  the  underwood  down. 

During  the  morning  we  crossed  Caneyfork,  a 
fine  branch  of  Cumberland  River,  where  I  saw 
immense  quantities  of  large  valves  of  the  unio 
laid  on  the  bottom  of  the  stream.  Our  road  was 
now  up  and  down  steep  limestone  slopes  to  a 
place  called  Liberty,  where,  as  well  as  we  could 
judge  from  the  exterior,  there  was  a  decent  tav- 
ern ;  and  as  we  had  ridden  thirty-three  miles 
without  breaking  our  fast,  we  told  the  people  we 
hoped  to  gel  a  good  breakfast.  But  it  turned  out 
they  had  no  bread  even  of  Indian  corn,  and  in 
its  place  the  landlady  placed  before  us  a  filthy- 
looking  mess  of  what  she  called  boiled  pie-crust, 
and  added  some  soft  of  meat,  but  so  filthy  and 
bla^that  we  had  to  give  the  whole  matter  up 
and^>  without  anything.  I  remembered  Mons. 
Nidelet's  maxim,  but  I  could  not  act  up  to  it 
upon  this  occasion.  I  therefore  went  out  to  col- 
lect some  fossils,  and  placing  them  on  the  seat 
of  the  stage-coach,  where  I  thought,  as  we  were 
the  only  passengers,  they  would  not  be  disturbed, 
I  entered  the  house  again  to  see  if  I  could  not 
prevail  upon  them  to  get  us  some  milk.  The 
landlord  of  this  house  was  a  weazen-faced,  dried- 
up  Methodist,  and  was  going  a  short  distance  on 
the  stage-coach  with  his  daughter  to  attend  a 
camp-meeting.  When  I  returned  to  the  vehicle 
I  found  him  there,  and  he  asked  me  "  if  it  wa 
me  what  had  left  that  'ar  dirt  on  the  seat,"  and 
said  that  he  had  flung  it  all  into  the  road.  I  was 
angry  enough  to  call  him  a  senseless  jackass,  a 
matter  which  he. did  not  pretend  to  dispute  with 
me.  Being  a  religious  man,  however,  and  hav- 
ing meant  no  harm,  I  was  sorrow  for  having  said 
it,  and  told  him  so  after  1  had  explained  what 
fossils  were.  This  set  all  right  when  we  got  into 
the  stage-coach,  and  I  got  some  information 
from  him  about  the  country.  He  said  there  were 
immense  quantities  of  Indian  graves  in  the 
neighbourhood;  and  that  about  five  miles  from 
his  house  there  was  a  mound,  situated  near  a 
stream  that  flows  into  the  Cumberland,  with  a 
circumvallation  going  round  it  that  would  meas- 
ure three  quarters  of  a  mile,  with  a  great  pro- 
fusion of  graves  near  to  it.  I  regretted  I  could 
not  see  this  to  make  a  sketch  of  it;  for  where 
mounds  of  a  similar  character  are  found  upon  a 
long  line  of  country,  they  generally  point  to  the 
origin  of  the  Indians  who  have 'made  them 
Some  fragments  of  idols  which  I  have  seen  in 
these  valleys,  whose  waters  flow  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  are  almost  identical  with  some  of  the 
Mexican  idols;  and  obsidian  has  been  found  in 
the  mounds  near  Lake  Ontairo,  which  is  a  strong 
indication  of  Mexican  origin,  as  there  is  no  ob 

sidian  in  the  United  States 


*  It  is  always  useful  to  give  the  forms  and  dimensions  o 
Indian  mounds  and  graves  when  seen  at  isolated  points,  fo 


At  night  we  arrived  at  Lebanon,  a  place  which 
s  tolerably  well  laid  out,  and  contains  Some  good 
>uildings  :  where  there  is  any  soil  upon  the  rocks, 
t  is  very  fertile,  but  the  horizontal  limestone 
:omes  so  near  to  the  surface,  that  the  ground  is 
ifien  unfit  for  agricultural  purposes. 

By  daylight  on  the  20th  we  were  again  in  the 
itage-coach,  proceeding  through  a  country  of  flat 
imestone  covered  with  a  deposit  of  fine  soiL 
Uolton  now  becomes  the  staple  of  the  country. 
We  stopped  at  a  poor  tavern  and  got  a  wretched 
breakfast,  a  not  uncommon  occurrence  in  these 
districts.  Travellers  always  fare  much  better  in 
arming  than  in  cotton  planting  countries,  where 
batter,  milk,  eggs,  flour,  &c.,  receive  very  little- 
attention  from  the  small  settlers. 

We  now  drove  on  to  the  Hermitage,  the  plan- 
tation of  General  Jackson,  the  President.  I  had 
seen  at  a  tavern  in  Virginia  a  box  directed  to 
lim,  and  learnt  accidentally  that  it  had  been 
waiting  there  several  weeks,  the  contractor  of 
he  stage  having  refused  to  forward  it  because 
he  carriage  was  not  paid,  and  because  he  was 
opposed  to  the  General  in  politics.  I  therefore 
took  it  under  my  care,  and  mentioning  the  cir- 
cumstance to  him  when  I  met  him  at  Campbell's 
station,  the  old  gentleman  told  me  that  the  box: 
contained  his  favourite  saddle,  and  that  he  had 
been  inconvenienced  for  the  want  of  it  during; 
the  short  holiday  he  had  been  indulging  in  from, 
the  seat  of  government.  The  mansion-house  at 
the  Hermitage— where  I  stopped  to  deliver  this 
box — is  built  of  brick,  and  is  tolerably  large; 
everything  was  neat  and  clean  around  it,  the 
fences  were  well  kept  up,  and  it  looked  like  the 
substantial  residence  of  an  opulent  planter.  The 
estate  is  said  to  be  a  very  fine  one,  to  consist  of 
from  seven  to  eight  hundred  acres  of  cleared 
land,  two  hundred  acres  of  which  are  in  cotton 
at  this  time,  and  to  extend  to  the  Cumberland 
river.  The  quantity  of  cotton  which  the  land 
yields  in  this  part  of  Tennessee  is  small  com- 
pared with  the  great  productiveness  of  the  rich, 
bottom  lands  in  the  33rd  and  32nd  degrees  of 
latitude  farther  south,  where  the  plant  comes 
much  nearer  to  perfection. 

A  plain  farmer  of  the  neighbourhood  who  got 
into  the  stage  wiih  us,  not  far  from  the  Hermit- 
age, to  go  to  Nashville,  and  who  had  lived  near 
General  Jackson  betwixt  twenty  and  thirty  years, , 
gave  us  a  very  intrresting  account  of  this  distin- 
guished man;  which,  making  allowances  for  the 
partiality  of  a  neighbour  who  shared  his  politi- 
cal opinions,  I  have  no  doubt  is  founded  in  truth. 
He  said  the  General  was  an  industrious,  mana- 
ging man,  always  up  to  all  his  undertakings, 
and  most  punctual  in  the  performance  of  his 
business  engagements:  that  his  private  conduc* 
was  remarkable  for  uniformly  inclining  to  jus- 
tice, generosity,  and  humanity:  that  he  was  an 
excellent  master  to  his  slaves,  and  never  permit- 
ted his  overseers  to  ill-treat  them.  As  to  his 
house,  he  said  it  was  constantly  full  of  people, 
being  in  fact  open  to  every  body ;  those  whom  he 
had  never  heard  of  before  being  asked  to  dine 
when  they  called,  and  those  they  had  room  for 
being  always  furnished  with  beds.  For  these 
reasons,  he  said,  every  body  respected  him,  and 
most  people  loved  him.  As  to  his  public,  con- 


the  purpose  of  connecting'  long  lines  of  such  objects  where 
they  exist.  One  traveller  sees  one  part  of  the  line,  and 
another  traveller  sees  another.  The  Americans  have  not 
hitherto  done  much  to  make  Europe  acquainted  with  the  in- 
terior of  this  part  of  t«heir  country  ;  they  are  as  yet  too  much 
occupied  in  establishing  themselves,  and  in  making  money. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


duct,  he  observed  that  he  was  rather  an  uncom- 
promising man,  and  liked  to  have  his  own  way, 
but  that  his  own  way  was  always  a  very  good 
one,  and  a  very  sensible  one,  if  he  was  left  to 
himself.  He  was  man  of  strong  passions,  and 
had  once  been  very  much  addicted  to  cock-fight- 
ing, horse-racing,  and  "cwtsiderable  cursing  and 
swearing,"  but  that  he  had  "  quit  all  these,"  and 
was  in  earnest  about  doing  good  to  the  country. 
And  he  added,  that  if  the  General  was  not  al- 
ways right,  it  was  to  be  laid  to  the  score  of  some 
of  his  political  friends,  who  imposed  upon  him 
for  their  own  private  ends,  a  thing  not  very  diffi- 
cult to  do,  because  when  he  thought  a  man  his 
friend  he  was  too  apt  to  go  great  lengths  with 
him.  These  remarks,  which  fell  from  our  fel- 
low-traveller in  a  quiet,  sensible  manner,  are  so 
much  in  accordance  with  what  I  have  observed 
and  seen  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  the 
United  States  have  yet  produced,  that  I  listened 
willingly  to  a  very  curious  account  he  gave  me 
of  some  incidents  of  the  General's  early  life, 
which,  I  believe,  have  been  greatly  misrepre- 
sented. 

About  1  o'clock  P.M.  we  fell  in  with  an  excel- 
lent macadamised  road,  leading  to  Shelbyville, 
and  soon  after  came  in  sight  of  Nashville,  the 
centre  of  civilization  of  the  western  country.  Its 
appearance  was  prepossessing.  We  soon  reach- 
ed the  public  square,  and  alighted  at  a  good- 
looking  inn,  called  the  City  Hotel,  where  at  last 
we  found  some  comforts,  after  getting  over  900 
miles  in  one  way  or  another  since  the  1st  of  Au- 
gust. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Description  of  Nashville-The  College— Professor  Troost 
—The  Baptist  Preacher  and  the  Rattlesnakes— Affinity 
betwixt  certain  Mexican  Idols  and  others  found  in  Se- 
quatchee  Valley  in  Tennessee — Public  Spirit  of  the  lead- 
ing men  of  Tennessee— Mr.  Ridley,  one  of  the  earliest 
Settlers  — His  adventures— Indian  attack  upon  a  stocka- 
ded Fort — Heroic  conduct  of  Mr.  Ridley's  Daughter — 
Murder  of  White  Children  by  the  Savages,  and  unmiti- 
gable  hatred  of  the  Whites  to  them. 

IN  the  afternoon,  after  reading  the  numerous 
letters  I  found  waiting  for  me  at  the  post-office, 
and  taking  a  hasty  look  at  the  town,  I  walked 
out  to  a  villa  in  the  neighbourhood  where  my 
friend  Monsieur  Pageot,  of  the  French  legation, 
was  passing  some  of  the  summer  months  with 
his  lady,  who  rs  a  native  of  the  State  of  Tennes- 
see. We  were  delighted  to  meet  in  this  distant 
part  of  the  world,  and  I  remained  chatting  with 
them  until  sunset.  On  reaching  my  quarters  I 
began  the  serious  work  of  answering  my  letters, 
for  I  find  it  one  of  the  very  best  habits  6f-a  man 
who  has  a  great  deal  to  do,  to  leave,  if  possible, 
nothing  undone  that  belongs  to  the  day,  and  at 
any  rate  to  make  a  clear  week  of  it. 

Nashville  contains  about  6000  inhabitants, 
has  a  public  square,  churches,  meeting-houses, 
markets,  &c.  &c.,  and  is  built  upon  a  lofty  knoll 
of  limestone,  the  fossiliferous  flat  rocks  of  which 
come  to  the  surface :  there  is  also  a  commodious 
bridge  which  connects  the  town  with  the  nor- 
thern bank  of  the  Cumberland  River,  on  the  road 
to  Kentucky.  Some  of  the  streets  are  steep,  and 
encumbered  with  sharp  pieces  of  limestone,  that 
punish  the  feet  severely  in  walking.  There  is 
an  excellent  spacious  building  in  the  vicinity 
called  the  Penitentiary,  and  another  is  erecting 
for  a  hospital.  Coming  from  the  wilderness, 
•where  we  have  been  leading  rather  a  rude  life 


self  perfectly  happy  as  the  dii 
sums ;  for,  like  all  philosophi 


]  for  some  time,  Nashville,  with  its  airy  salubri- 
ous position,  and  its  active  bustling  population, 
is  quite  what  an  oasis  in  the  desert  would  be; 
and  when  improvements  are  made  in  the  naviga- 
tion of  the  Cumberland  River,  and  in  the  public 
r^ads,  it  cannot  fail  to  become  a  populous  town. 

One  of  my  first  movements  was  a  walk  to  the 
college  to  see  Professor  Troost,  who  is  a  great 
enthusiast  in  geology.  It  is  to  be  mentioned  t» 
the  honour  of  the  State  of  Tennessee,  that  it  has 
been  one  of  the  first  of  the  American  States  (a 
patronise  science,  by  allowing  him  five  hundred 
dollars  a  year  as  geologist  to  the  State,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  appointment  at  the  college  as  profes- 
sor of  chemistry  and  natural  history,  to  which  a 
salary  of  one  thousand  dollars  a  year  is  attached; 
so  that  the  worthy  professor  is  thus  enabled  to 
enjoy  all  the  comforts  of  life,  and  to  make  him- 
distribator  of  these 
ic  enthusiasts,  he 

places  no  value  on  money,"  and  willingly  gives 
any  of  the  country  people  twenty  dollars  to  bring 
him  a  live  rattlesnake,  or  anything  new  or  curi- 
ous in  natural  history.  Everything  of  the  ser- 
pent kind  he  has  a  particular  fancy  for,  and  has 
always  a  number  of  them — that  he  has  tamed—- 
in his  pockets  or  under  his  waistcoat.  To  loll 
back  in  his  rocking-chair,  to  talk  about  geology, 
and  pat  the  head  of  a  large  snake,  when  twining 
itself  about  his  neck,  is  to  him  supreme  felicity.. 
Every  year  in  the  vacation  he  makes  an  excur- 
sion to  the  hills,  and  I  was  told  that,  upon  one 
of  these  occasions,  being  taken  up  by  the  stage- 
coach, which  had  several  members  of  Congress 
in  it  going  to  Washington,  the  learned  Doctor 
took  his  seal  on  the  top  with  a  large  basket,  the 
lid  of  which  was  not  over  and  above  well  secu- 
red. Near  to  this  basket  sat  a  Baptist  preacher 
on  his  way  to  a  great  public  immersion.  His 
reverence,  awakening  from  a  reverie  he  had  fall- 
en into,  beheld  to  his  unutterable  horror  two  rat- 
tlesnakes raise  their  fearful  heads  out  of  the  bas- 
ket, and  immediately  precipitated  himself  upon. 
the  driver,  who,  almost  knocked  off  his  seat,  no 
sooner  became  apprised  of  the  character  of  his 
ophidian  outside  passengers  than  he  jumped 
upon  the  ground  with  the  reins  in  his  hands, 
and  was  followed  instanter  by  the  preacher. 
The  "insides,"  as  soon  as  they  learned  what 
was  going  on,  immediately  became  outsides, 
and  nobody  was  left  but  the  Doctor  and  his  rat- 
tlesnakes on  the  top.  But  the  Doctor,  not  en- 
tering into  the  general  alarm,  quietly  placed  his 
greatcoat  over  the  basket,  and  tied  it  down  with 
his  handkerchief,  which,  when  he  had  done,  he 
said,  "  Gendlemen,  only  don't  let  dese  poor  dings 
pile  you,  und  dey  won't  hoort  you." 

Dr.  Troost  is  a  native  of  Bois  le  Due,  in  Hol- 
land, and  is  a  short  thick  man,  with  a  physiog- 
nomy entirely  German,  but  pleasing  and  bsn^^c- 
olent;  his  hair  is  white,  and  his  dress  «<#*«-_ 
markably  neat.  He  wa.<  a  surgeon  in  the  Dutch 
army,  and  when  he  landed  at -New  York,  was 
on  his  way  to  Java  with  a  commission  from 
Louis  Bonaparte,  then  his  sovereign,  to  examine 
the  natural  history  of  that  island  :  learnin?,  how- 
ever, that  Java  had  been  taken  by  the  English, 
he  proceeded  to  Philadeldhia  with  an  intention 
to  settle  there.  Dissatisfied  with  the  neglect  he 
experienced,  he  went  to  New  Harmonyj  in  Illi- 
nois, with  Le  Sneur,  another  naturalist ;  and 
becoming  disgusted  with  the  quackerv  of  the  So- 
cialist philosophers  who  had  assembled  there  to 
practice  their  insane  theories,  he,  in  a  happy 
hour,  came  to  Nashville,  where  his  merit  is  ac- 


52 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


knowledged.  His  private  room  at  his  house  is 
full  of  snakes,  fossils,  turtles,  birds,  fishes,  Indi- 
an relics,  &c.,  &c.,  all  thrown  together  in  the 
greatest  confusion.  It  makes  no  matter  what  it 
is,  the  Doctor  is  such  a  confirmed  virtuoso,  that 
everything  is  fish  that  comes  to  his  net.  The 
museum  of  the  college,  of  which  I  had  heard  a 
great  deal,  contains  numerous  objects  collected 
and  placed  there  by  him,  chemical  apparatus, 
dead  animals,  stuffed  birds,  turtles,  fossils,  min- 
erals, books,  all  stowed  away  without  the  least 
regard  to  order,  and  where  none  but  the  master- 
hand  of  all  this  confusion  can  possibly  ferret 
out  anything  that  may  be  wanted.  Although  a 
man  gifted  with  a  strong  intellect,  yet  the  organ 
of  order  seems  to  be  rather  deficient  with  the 
worthy  Professor.  I  found  him  a  most  friendly 
and  obliging  person,  and  during  my  stay  in  Nash- 
ville went  to  see  him  as  often  as  the  public  ex- 
aminations, now  going  on  at  the  college,  would 
admit  of.  Amongst  his  Indian  relics  I  observed 
some  (I  had  seen  fragments  of  a  like  kind  found 
in  the  valleys  near  Sparta)  bearing  a  close  re- 
semblance to  the  Mexican1  idols  or  Teutes.  One 
of  them  was  very  interesting.  Some  portions 
of  a  large  Cassis  cornuta — a  shell  found  near 
Tampico,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico — had  been  bro- 
ken away,  and  one  of  these  images  or  idols  was 
placed  upon  a  point  of  the  Columella  as  a  kind 
of  altar.  This  was  found  in  Sequatchee  Valley, 
in  Bledsoe  County,  through  which  runs  a  tribu- 
tary of  the  Tennessee,  whose  waters  flow  into 
the  Mississippi.  This  Sequatchee  Valley  seems 
to  have  been  a  fovourite  resort  of  the  Indians  in 
old  times,  for  it  contains  great  numbers  of  their 
graves  and  monuments.  When  the  language  of 
the  Cherokee  Indians  comes  to  be  analytically 
examined,  some  affinities  to  the  Aztec  dialects 
may  possibly  be  discovered;  and  it  certainly  is 
a  fact  of  some  importance  to  the  inquirer  after 
the  origin  of  the  Indians,  that  there  are  some 
points  of  resemblance  between  the  Cherokees 
and  Mexicans,  and  that  the  first  had  been  seat- 
ed, long  before  America  was  discovered,  in  warm 
sheltered  valleys  that  debouched  into  rivers  emp- 
tying into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

I  received  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  during  my 
stay  here  in  attending  the  examinations  at  the 
college.  One  of  the  days  was  appropriated  to 
Dr.  Troost,  and  a  great  number  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  assembled  in  his  laboratory.  The 
students  read  essays  on  geology  and  natural  his- 
tory that  deserved  much  commendation,  and  af- 
forded me,  for  the  first  time,  such  a  gratifying 
spectacle  as  I  had  never  before  witnessed  in  any 
of  the  colleges  of  this  country.  The  Doctor 
says,  that  although  he  has  had  some  sensible, 
clever  youths  under  his  care,  he  has  not  yet  met 
with  one  enthusiast — therefore  I  do  not  appre- 
be®d  the  science  will  make  a  very  rapid  prog- 
^><;s  here.  The  other  branches  of  learning  ap- 
peared to  me  to  receive  gre2t  attention ;  Mr. 
Hamilton,  the  professor  of  mathematics,  is  an 
able  man,  and  Dr.  Lindsay,  the  principal,  seems 
worthy  of  his  situation.  The  students,  in  sev- 
eral instances,  had  made  very  good  progress  in 
the  languages  and  what  struck  and  surprised 
me  was  the  purity  of  their  elocution,  which  was 
divested  of  everything  like  provincialism.  I 
could  not  help  complimenting  Dr.  Lindsay  upon 
this  point,  for  it  is  not  to  be  concealed  that  the 
vulgar  corruptions  which  are  silently  taking 
place  in  the  English  tongue  in  the  Southern 
States  threaten  to  establish  a  sort  of  Creole  dia- 
lect, that,-  in  concert  with  the  effects  of  their 


popular  institutions  of  government,  may  rapidly 
effect  the  total  corruption  of  our  language  there. 

The  dialects  of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire 
are  unintelligible  enough  to  strangers,  but  the 
respectability  of  antiquity  attaches  to  them , 
they  are  the  ancient  language  of  the  people  of 
those  districts,  have  been  honestly  transmitted 
down  to  them,  and  are  slowly  yielding  to  the 
progress  of  improvement.  Here  the  people  have 
been  furnished  with  one  of  the  finest  languages 
spoken  in  Christendom,  yet  they  seem  to  be  ta- 
king such  pains  to  make  it  indecently  vulgar 
and  obscure,  that,  although  accustomed  to  it,  I 
frequently  am  left  almost  ignorant  of  what  they 
really  mean  to  say.  A  liberal  institution,  like 
ibis  college,  conducted  in  the  manner  it  is,  is  arl 
inestimable  blessing  to  the  state,  and  will  enlarge 
and  purify  the  minds  of  hundreds  whose  shining 
examples  will  assist  to  keep  down  the  vulgari- 
:ies  that  must  overrun  every  country  where  ed- 
ucation is  not  worthily  attended  to.  The  gen- 
tlemen of  Tennessee  who  patronise  this  college, 
deserve  therefore  to  be  mentioned  with  all  hon- 
our as  the  benefactors  of  the  coming  generation. 

No  traveller  who  comes  into  the  country  as  I 
have  done,  can  feel  anything  but  respect  for 
what  he  sees  around  him  in  this  place.  When 
I  first  visited  North  America,  in  1806,  the  word 
Tennessee  was  mentioned  as  a  kind  of  Ultima 
Thule.  Now  it  is  a  Sovereign  State,  with  a 
population  of  upwards  of  700,000  inhabitants, 
has  given  a  President  to  the  United  States,  and 
has  established  a  geological  chair  in  the  wilder- 
ness. The  first  log-hut  ever  erected  in  Nash- 
ville was  in  1780;  now  there  is  a  handsome 
town,  good  substantial  brick  houses,  with  pub- 
lic edifices  that  would  embellish  any  city  in 
America,  and  certainly,  as  far  as  architecture  is 
concerned,  one  of  the  most  chaste  episcopal 
churches  in  the  United  States.  Besides  these 
there  are  numerous  extensive  warehouses,  evi- 
dences of  a  brisk  commerce,  and  an  exceeding- 
ly well  constructed  bridge  thrown  across  the 
Cumberland  River.  It  adds  greatly  too  to  the 
interest  of  the  place,  that  a  few  of  the  hardy  in- 
dividuals who,  with  their  rifles  on  their  shoul- 
ders, penetrated  here,  and  became  the  first  set- 
tlers, still  live  to  see  the  extraordinary  changes 
which  have  taken  place. 

In  one  of  my  geological  walks  I  called  at  the 
residence  of  one  of  these  venerable  men,  a  Mr. 
Ridley,  who  possesses  a  plantation  about  four 
miles  from  Nashville.  Going  along  the  road,  a 
group  of  wooden  buildings  of  a  rude  and  com- 
paratively antique  structure  could  not  but  attract 
my  attention,  especially  one  of  them  which  stood 
alone,  and  differed  from  all  the  others.  On  en- 
tering a  room  of  the  dwelling-house  I  found  a 
tall  strapping  young  negro  wench  reeling  cotton, 
with  a  machine  that  made  such  a  detestible 
creaking,  that  I  could  scarce  hear  my  own  voice 
when  I  askad  her  if  there  was  a  spring  of  water 
near.  As  soon  as  she  pointed  it  out,  my  son 
took  a  gourd  shell,  kept  for  the  purpose,  and 
went  for  water:  in  the  mean  time  I  passed  into 
the  court-yard,  where  I  found  an  elderly  woman, 
rather  masculine  in  her  manner,  very  stout  in 
her  person,  and  strong  in  her  movements.  Upon 
my  asking  her  if  she  was  the  mistress  of  the 
house,  she  very  civilly  replied  that  she  was  not, 
"  but  that  her  mammy  was,"  who  was  coming. 
I  now  perceived  a  much  older  woman,  extreme- 
ly emaciated  and  sallow,  but  erect  in  her  per- 
son, and  very  lively  in  her  manner  of  speaking, 
coming  froni  a  log-hut  which  served'as  a  kitch- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


53 


en.  This  aged  person  naving  obligingly  asked 
me  if  I  would  not  go  into  the  house  and  take  a 
chair,  I  went  towards  it,  and  near  the  door  found 
an  aged  man  with  a  hoary  head,  eyes  that  would 
scarcely  bear  the  light,  and  every  mark  of  ex- 
treme old  age  about  him.  He  shook  hands 
kindly  with  me,  and  asked  me  various  questions, 
who  I  was,  where  I  came  from,  where  I  was  go- 
ing to,  and  was  particularly  anxious  to  know 
how  old  I  was,  seeing  that  my  hair  was  grey. 
I  spent  the  morning  with  this  patriarchal  family, 
and  ingratiated  myself  so  much  with  them,  that 
they  imparted  their  history  to  me. 

The  old  man,  Daniel  Ridley,  was  ninety-five 
years  old,  or  would  be  so  the  1st  of  January, 
1835,  being  born  on  the  first  day  of  the  year  1740, 
in  the  reign  of  George  II.  The  emaciated  wom- 
an was  his  second  wife ;  she  was  eighty  years 
old,  and  during  the  fifty-four  years  they  had  been 
man  and  wife,  she  had  borne  him  eight  children. 
Miss  Betsy,  the  stout  woman — for  so  she  was 
called  by  the  slaves — was  a  daughter  by  his  first 
marriage,  and  was  now  sixty-two  years  old :  she 
had  been  married  twice,  and  already  had  great 
grand -children.  The  patriarch  himself,  of 
course,  had  great  great  grand-children,  one  of 
whom,  a  descendant  of  his  oldest  son,  now  in 
his  seventy-second  year,  was  to  be  married  next 
year,  so  he  may  yet  live  to  bless  his  fifth  genera- 
tion. He  told  me  he  had  a  short  time  ago  been 
counting  his  descendants,  but  after  getting  as  far 
as  three  hundred,  he  found  it  very  troublesome, 
and  had  given  it  up.  These  had  sprung  from 
sixteen  children,  the  produce  of  both  his  mar- 
riages. A  curious  little  trait  disclosed  itself  in 
the  old  man  when  he  first  began  to  converse, 
which  is  often  observed  in  very  old  people.  We 
were  talking  in  the  room  where  the  cotton-ma- 
chine was  screaking,  and  he  articulated  so  fee- 
bly that  it  sometimes  prevented  my  hearing  what 
he  said;  I  therefore  mentioned  it  to  the  old  lady, 
who  bade  the  girl  to  stop,  but  the  wench  flatly 
refused,  and  \upon  my  telling  her  that  she  must 
stop,  she  said,  "  The  old  man  won't  let  me  stop." 
I  now  turned  to  him  to  explain  the  necessity  of 
her  stopping  whilst  we  were  conversing ;  but  I 
found  it  unnecessary — hre  was  shrewd  enough, 
and  knew  what  we  were  talking  about.  "  If  she 
stops,"  said  he,  "  she  won't  get  her  task  done." 
At  ninety -five  years  of  age,  on  the  brink  of  the 
grave,  he  could  not  bear  to  lose  the  value  of  a 
halfpenny — for  the  delay  would  not  have  cost 
him  more — of  the  labour  of  one  of  his  slaves. 
Miss  Betsy  told  me  before  I  went  away,  that 
•when  he  was  occasionally  indisposed,  and  they 
had  to  lay  him  on  his  bed  in  the  same  room,  he 
insisted  upon  the  machine  going  from  morn  to 
night,  and  always  scolded  the  girl  if  she  stopped 
an  instant. 

Old  Mr.  Ridley  informed  me  that  he  was  a 
native  of  Williamsburgh,  in  Virginia,  that  he 
emigrated  from  thence  on  marrying  his  second 
wife  in  1780,  and  established  himself  on  the 
north  fork  of  the  Holston,  where  they  lived  be- 
twixt ten  and  eleven  years,  continually  engaged 
in  troublesome  contests  with  the  Indians;  but 
this  he  did  not  mind,  he  was  naturally  industri- 
ous, and  having*  eight  children  by  his  first  wife, 
to  whom  he  was  married  before  he  was  twenty, 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  work  hard.  He  had 
also  been  a  soldier  in  General  Braddock's  army, 
and  was  thoroughly  inured  to  fatigue  and  dan- 
ger. Hearing  of  a  settlement  that  was  making 
on  the  Cumberland  River,  he  joined  a  large  par- 
ty, who,  having  built  boats,  came  down  the 


Holston,  the  Tennessee,  and  the  Cumberland 
rivers,  about  eight  hundred  miles,  to  Nashville, 
where  they  landed  in  1790.  The  families  com- 
posing this  expedition  proceeding  to  settle  them- 
selves, he  selected  the  site  he  now  lived  on  for 
his  plantation.  His  first  care  was  to  clear  an 
acre  of  ground  for  his  fort,  and  construct  a  strong 
stockade  around  it,  with  a  gate,  as  the  Choctaw, 
Chickasaw,  and  Cherokee  Indians  were  fiercely 
contending  against  this  intrusion  into  their  hunt- 
ing-grounds. Within  the  stockade  he  built  a 
double  log-house,  consisting,  in  accordance  with 
the  general  custom,  of  two  rooms,  with  a  spa- 
cious passage  between  them,  putting  the  whole 
under  one  roof.  One  of  the  rooms  served  the 
family  to  sleep  in,  the  other  for  a  kitchen,  and 
the  passage  was  a  convenient  place  to  eat  and 
sit  in.  A  few  yards  from  this  he  erected  a  well- 
constructed  block-house,  for  the  family  to  fly  to 
if  the  stockade  was  forced.  This  block-house 
yet  stands  on  the  N.E.  corner  of  the  fort,  and  was 
the  building  which  we  had  observed  was  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  others.  On  the  S.E.  corner  of 
the  fort  he  placed  another  block-house,  and  on, 
the  S.W.  corner  another.  On  the  N.W.  corner 
he  had  not  built  one,  because  it  was  protected 
by  the  others.  Within  the  area  were  a  few  oth- 
er buildings  for  the  convenience  of  their  horses 
and  cattle. 

This  was  the  general  plan  adopted  by  the 
whites  for  the  protection  of  their  families  against 
the  Indians;  and  certainly  the  block-house  ap- 
pears to  be  a  very  convenient  and  efficacious 
building  for  the  purpose  it  is  intended  to  serve. 
The  one  we  saw  was  about  twenty  feet  square, 
and  was  built  thus : — next  to  the  ground  were 
six  round  logs  about  twenty-one  feet  long,  laid 
upon  each  other,  and  well  mortised :  next  came 
a  log  about  twenty-four  feet  long,  on  the  west 
side,  and  a  similar  one  on  the  other  sides,  all 
well  mortised.  In  this  way  a  projection— even 
with  the  floor  that  divides  the  upper  chamber  of 
the  block-house  from  the  lower  one — is  formed 
beyond  the  ground-tier  of  logs,  upon  which  an 
upper  wall  of  round  logs  is  built,  after  which  the 
building  is  roofed  in.  Upon  the  roof  pieces  of 
wood  are  fixed  for  the  garrison  to  step  upon  and 
extinguish  any  fire  the  Indians  might  succeed  in 
setting  to  it  with  their  arrows.  Loop-holes  also 
are  made  in  the  logs  of  the  upper  chamber  to  en- 
able them  to  fire  at  any  of  the  Indians  who  ven- 
tured to  show  themselves ;  as  well  as  others  in 
the  projecting  part  of  the  floor,  from  whence  they 
could  fire  perpendicularly  down  upon  their  be- 
siegers, if  they  should  attempt  to  run  up  to  the 
block-house  to  set  fire  to  it. 

Mr.  Ridley  never  was  attacked  in  his  fort;  but 
a  neighbouring  one,  on  the  plantation  of  his  son- 
in-law,  Mr.  Buchanan,  became  the  scene  of  an 
affair  still  talked  of  by  many  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Nashville  with  great  interest,  and  of  which  I 
had  the  details  from  the  Ridley  family.  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan resided  about  two  miles  from  the  Rid- 
leys :  they  had  removed  into  Tennessee  togeth- 
er, had  settled  near  each  other,  and  Mr.  Buchan- 
an's son  had  married  Mr.  Ridley's  daughter, 
Sally,  a  woman  of  very  large  dimensions,  weigh- 
ing 260  Ibs.  She  had  a  courageous  spirit  corre- 
sponding to  her  size,  and  having  been  trained 
from  her  early  youth  amidst  dangers,  had  al- 
ways— as  her  father  informed  me — been  remark- 
able for  her  personal  resolution,  and  her  patient 
endurance  of  hardships.  The  fort  of  old  Mr. 
Buchanan  had  once  been  surprised  by  theChero- 
kees  and  Choctaws,  when  the  Indians,  rushing; 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


into  the  room  where  the  old  pair  had  taken  ref- 
uge, butchered  the  old  man  in  the  presence  of  his 
•wife,  who,  kneeling  with  her  back  to  the  wall, 
and  imploring  their  mercy,  had  the  muzzles  of 
their  guns  pushed  close  to  her  face  to  frighten 
her.  She  was,  however,  spared.  "  I  once  ask- 
ed her."  said  old  Mrs.  Ridley  to  me,  "  how  she 
felt  when  she  saw  her  old  man  she  had  lived 
•with  so  long  tomahawked  in  that  way;  but  she 
gave  me  no  answer,  and  putting  her  hands  be- 
fore her  face  cried  so,  I  thought  she  would  have 
broken  her  heart."  In  1792,  when  the  attack 
upon  the  fort  which  is  going  to  be  narrated  took 
place,  Mr.  Ridley's  son-in-law,  Buchanan,  had 
possession  of  it. 

The  Indians  had  been  gathering  for  some 
time,  and  the  white  settlers  had  been  informed 
through  their  spies  that  it  was  their  intention  first 
to  attack  and  subdue  Buchanan's  fort,  then  Rid- 
ley's, and  afterwards  another  on  the  Cumber- 
land. Four  hundred  settlers  had  assembled,  and 
had  waited  from  day  to  day  at  Buchanan's,  but 
it  being  rumoured  that  the  Indians  had  given  up 
Iheir  intention,  almost  the  whole  of  them  return- 
ed to  their  own  homes,  the  insecurity  of  their 
families  keeping  them  in  continued  anxiety,  so 
that  only  nineteen  of  the  whole  muster  remain- 
ed, all  of  whom  belonged  to  the  immediate  vi- 
cinity. One  Saturday  evening,  a  Frenchman, 
and  a  half-blooded  Indian,  arrived  in  great  haste 
at  the  fort,  to  say  that  the  Indians  were  on  their 
•way,  and  would  soon  be  there.  They  were  not 
believed,  even  when  the  half-blood  told  them 
they  might  cut  his  head  off  if  the  savages  did  not 
Teach  the  place  in  a  few  hours.  Two  men,  how- 
ever, were  dispatched  to  reconnoitre,  and  pro- 
ceeding heedlessly,  they  fell  into  an  ambush,  and 
•were  both  of  them  killed  and  scalped.  These 
messengers  not  returning,  it  was  concluded  that 
they  had  extended  their  reconnaissance,  and  that 
therefore  the  Indians  could  not  be  near:  the  con- 
sequence was  that  the  Frenchman  and  the  half- 
blood,  who  had  professed  to  have  come  amongst 
them  to  take  white  wives,  were  now  looked  upon 
•with  great  suspicion. 

In  this  state  of  things  all  the  men  of  the  fort 
retired  to  rest,  leaving  Sally  Buchanan  to  sit  up 
in  the  kitchen.  Whilst  she  was  listening  in  the 
dead  of  the  night  to  a  noise  at  a  distance,  which 
she  at  first  supposed  indicated  the  approach  of 
the  messengers,  suddenly  she  heard  the  horses 
and  cows  struggling  and  running  about  in  the 
enclosure  in  great  agitation — for,  as  Mrs.  Rid- 
ley said,  "  Cows  is  mortal  feared,  as  well  as  hor- 
ses, of  them  parfict  devils  the  Indians ;" — and  un- 
derstanding the  signs,  she  immediately  roused 
the  men  with  the  cry  of  "Indians,  boys!  In- 
dians!" Instantly  arming  themselves,  the  men 
flew  to  the  gate,  which  900  warriors  of  the  Chero- 
Irees,  Choctaws,  and  Chickasaws  were  attempt- 
ing to  force.  The  gate  was  thoroughly  well  se- 
enred,  or  it  must  have  given  way  to  their  efforts ; 
but  the  Indians  fortunately  making  no  diversion 
at  any  other  point,  the  brave  men  inside  had  but 
this  to  direct  their  attention  to;  and  animated  by 
a  noble  determination  to  defend  the  place  to  the 
last  extremity,  they  made  an  aciive  and  vigor- 
cos  defence,  answering  to  the  deafening  yells  of 
the  savages  by  a  shot  at  them  whenever  a  chance 
occurred  of  its  taking  effect.  In  the  mean  time, 
it  being  discovered  that  the  absentees  had  taken 
almost  all  the  bullets  with  them,  the  heroic  Sally 
Buchanan,  thinking  the  men  would  be  more  ef- 
fectually employed  at  the  stockade,  undertook 
the  task  of  supplying  them,  and  at  the  kitchen- 


fire  actually  cast  almost  all  the  bullets  that  were 
fired,  whilst  a  female  relative  who  was  staying 
witn  her  clipped  the  necks  off.  As  fast  as  they 
were  ready,  Sally  would  run  out  with  them,  and 
cry  aloud,  "  Here,  boys,  here's  bullets  for  you; 
but  mind  you  don't  sarve'em  out  till  you're  sure 
of  knocking  some  of  them  screaming  devils 
over." 

This  incident  is  equal  taany  thing  we  read  of 
in  history;  and  so  much  were  the  men  encour- 
aged by  the  indomitable  spirit  of  Sally,  that  the 
Indians,  after  a  fruitless  attempt  to  force  their  way 
in,  which  lasted  several  hours,  becoming  appre- 
hensive that  the  report  of  the  rifles  and  the  up- 
roar— which  Mrs.  Ridley  heard  very  distinctly 
two  miles  off— would  bring  succours  to  the  gar- 
rison, drew  off  before  daylight,  after  losing  sev- 
eral of  their  number.  And  thus  the  garrison,  by 
its  prompt  and  gallant  resistance,  not  only  saved 
itself,  but  all  the  other  forts  which  the  Indians 
had  laid  their  account  in  capturing. 

At  this  period  the  most  unquenchable  hatred 
existed  betwixt  the  Indians  and  the  white  set- 
tlers, ihe  first  struggling  for  their  hunting  grounds, 
the  last  for  their  lives.  The  Indians  never  spared 
the  male  whites  when  they  could  destroy  them, 
and  very  seldom  the  females.  As  they  were  not 
always  in  sufficient  force  to  attack  the  settle- 
ments openly,  they  proweled  about  in  small  par- 
ties, and  placed  themselves  in  ambush  where  the 
whites  were  accustomed  to  pass.  Mr.  Buchan- 
an had  a  grist-mill  near  his  fort,  to  which  the 
neighbours  used  to  resort  to  have  their  flour 
made.  Upon  an  occasion  when  Indians  were 
not  supposed  to  be  near,  one  of  their  female  ac- 
quaintances who  lived  in  the  vicinity  sent  her 
four  young  boys  to  the  mill  for  grist  lor  the  fam- 
ily, thinking  they  would  not  only  be  able  to  as- 
sist each  other,  but  would  be  a  mutual  protec- 
tion. These  little  fellows  were  unsuspectingly 
surprised  by  some  savages  not  far  from  the  house, 
and  the  wretched  mother  had  the  unspeakable 
misery  of  seeing  them  all  dragged  into  the  woods 
to  be  scalped.  Two  of  these  boys  survived  and 
got  renewed  scalps,  but  they  were  always  bald. 
Upon  another  occasion,  a  young  girl  was  going 
on  horseback  to  a  friend's  not  more  than  two 
miles  distant,  and  persuaded  another  young  fe- 
male, her  friend,  to  get  up  behind  and  accompa- 
ny her.  Before  they  had  got  half  way,  however, 
the  girl  who  rode  behind  was  shot  down  by  some 
Indians,  and  the  other  escaped  by  the  fleetness  of 
her  horse,  which  she  urged  with  desperation,  and 
with  which  she  took  such  a  desperate  leap  as  to 
be  the  wonder  of  the  generation  she  belonged  to. 

Still  influenced  by  a  feeling  of  unmitigable 
and  unsatiable  revenge  against  the  Indians  for 
practising  such  inhuman  warfare,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  when  GeneralJackson  went  against 
the  Creeks  in  1813,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Ten- 
nesseans  to  serve  under  the  bravest  and  most 
warm-hearted  of  their  citizens  should  have  been 
general.  Four  of  old  Mr.  Ridley's  sons  accom- 
panied him.  "  The  boys  would  go,"  said  the  old 
man  to  me :  "  I  couldn't  have  stopped  them  if  I 
had  wished ;  but  I  did  not  wish  to  do  it."  "  Ay," 
added  his  old  wife,  "I  told  my  boys  they  were 
as  welcome  to  go  with  Jackson  as  they  were  to 
sit  down  to  dinner."  "  Yes,"  said  Miss  Betsy, 
the  sister  of  the  Amazonian  Sally,  SnH  the  great- 
grandmother  of  several  children,  "I'd  fight  for 
Jackson  myself,  any  day."  And  when  I  lock 
leave  of  this  fine  honest  family,  the  old  tnao 
grasped  my  hand  in  his,  and  said,  "  When  you 
get  to  Washington,  tell  Jackson  I  was  sorry  1x4 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


did  not  call  on  me;  it  is  the  first  time  he  went 
away  without  calling;  but  I  know  he  couldn't 
come;  he  sent  me  word  he  couldn't.  Tell  him," 
said  he,  and  the  old  man,  to  the  great  admira- 
tion of  my  son  and  myself,  absolutely  sobbed, 
•whiht  his  aged  eyes  were  suffused  with  tears, 
"tell  him  1  love  him — I  love  him  better  than  I 
love  any  body:  he  Aas  always  been  kind  to  me; 
there  was  always  a  good  understanding  betwixt 
us."  As  I  was  g«ing  out  at  the  door,  he  added, 
"  Tell  Jackson  to  send  me  a  pair  of  specs :  if  I 
could  only  see  to  read  the  Testament,  it  would 
not  be  so  hard  to  live :  but  I  can  scarce  see  at 
all."*  I  am  rather  afraid  this  was  a  piece  of 
stinginess  in  the  old  patriarch,  who  could  have 
found  plenty  of  spectacles  in  Nashville.  But  he 
is  a  great  economist;  for  a  carpenter,  who  was 
doing  a  job  to  his  house,  having  got  it  done  a 
couple  of  hours  before  night,  the  old  man,  seeing 
a  plank  or  two  to  spare,  obliged  him  to  stay  the 
two  hours  out  and  make  up  the  planks  into  a 
coffin  for  himself,  which  he  actually  keeps  un- 
der his  bed ;  and  there  being  still  some  stuff  to 
spare,  he  told  the  carpenter  it  was  a  great  pity 
there  was  not  enough  to  make  another  for  Mrs.  ] 
Ridley. 

I  learned  afterwards  that  some  partial  settle- ! 
ments  had  been  made  about  here  before  Mr.  Rid- 
ley came  to  Tennessee,  and,  indeed,  as  early  as 
1779.  General  Jackson  settled  on  a  plantation 
near  to  that  where  he  now  resides  in  1778,  but 
happened  to  be  from  home  when  the  Indians 
gathered  in  1792.  Dr.  Robinson  told  me  that  his 
father  was  the  first  settler  in  1779,  and  that  he 
built  his  log-hut  at  French  Lick,  a  mineral 
springt  in  the  surburbs  of  Nashville.  This  lick 
•was  resorted  to  by  wild  animals;  and  a  Mons. 
Monbrun,  a  French  trader  and  hunter  from  Kas- 
kaskias,  in  the  state  of  Illinois,  who  came  nere 
to  trade  with  the  Indians,  used  to  say  that  he  has 
often  sat  on  the  bank  of  a  ravine  near  the  spring, 
and  picked  the  finest  buffaloes  off  with  his  rifle. 
Mr.  Robinson,  finding  the  country  fertile  and  in- 
viting, left  his  party  to  plant  corn,  and  returned 
to  the  east  to  conduct  a  larger  number  of  his 
friends  back,  who  were  anxious  to  join  his  set- 
tlement at  French  Lick.  These  he  brought,  with 
their  live  stock,  by  a  circuitous  route  to  avoid 
some  Cherokee  towns;  and,  on  reaching  their 
destination,  proceeded  to  occupy  the  country  un- 
der grants  of  land  from  the  State  of  North  Car- 
olina, and  to  erect  stockaded  forts.  No  Indians 
had  settled  in  these  parts;  and  the  whites,  finding 
the  country  vacant,  took  possession  without  cer- 
emony. But  although  the  Indians  did  not  live 
here,  they  considered  the  country  as  their  hunt- 
ing ground.  Game  was  very  abundant  where 
they  resided,  and  this  was  the  reason  why  they 
did  not  even  visit  French  Lick  annually.  Find- 
ing, however,  that  the  whites  were  increasing  in 
numbers,  they  commenced  hostilities  about  a 
year  and  a  half  after  the  arrival  of  the  whites, 
and  waged  war  incessantly  against  them  will: 
more  or  less  vigour  for  fifteen  years,  harassing 
them  so  much,  that  at  one  time,  disheartened  by 
great  losses  of  their  children  and  friends,  and 
seeing  no  end  to  the  conflict,  they  were  on  the 
point  of  coming  to  a  determination  to  abandon 


*  General  Jackson,  to  whom  I  related  this  interview  on 
my  return  to  Washington,  confirmed  all  the  incidents  here 
mentioned,  and  snid  he  certainly  would  send  the  old  patri- 
arch a  pair  of  spectacles. 

t  This  is  a  snrin?  of  sulphuretted  hydros-en,  and  the  tem- 
perature is  52°  F;ihr.  Persons  from  New  Orleans  and  other 
j. arts  of  Louisiana  come  here  during  the  summer  mouths. 


55 

the  country.  Of  seven  males  in  the  family  of 
Mr.  Robinson,  who  was  the  principal  leader  of 
the  whites,  only  two  were  left,  himself  and  a  son. 
Dr.  Robinson  told  me  that,  when  a  boy,  he  re- 
membered his  elder  brother  being  brought  home 
dead  from  a  camp  where  he  was  making  maple 
sugar.  The  Indians  had  killed  him  and  cut  his 
head  off. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  religious  sect  of  the  Campbellites — Order  of  Priest- 
hood confined  to  handsome  young  fellows— Geology  of  this 
part  of  Tennessee — Section  of  the  Couutry  made  by  the 
Cumberland  River  for  300  miles— Remarkable  ancient  bed 
of  broken  Shells— Harpeth  Ridge— Unios  of  the  Western 
waters. 

ON  returning  from  my  daily  excursions  to  the 
hotel,  I  had  always  two  or  three  agreeable  fam- 
ilies to  resort  to,  where  I  could  pass  an  hour  or 
two  pleasantly.  One  evening  I  went  to  a  soiree 
at  a  Mrs.  M'C*  *  *'s,  where  the  most  select  of 
the  Nashvillian  ladies  were  supposed  to  be  pres- 
ent. Some  of  them  were  fashionably  dressed 
and  were  pretty,  rather  provincial  and  hearty  in 
their  manners  perhaps,  but  the  evening  went  off 

?uite  en  r6gle,  and  I  was  very  much  entertained, 
was  told  afterwards  that  the  party  was  given 
to  a  lady  on  her  marriage  to  a  preacher  of  the 
CampbeUite  persuasion,  and  that  the  greater  por- 
ion  of  the  company  belonged  to  that  sect,  one  of 
the  most  curious  of  the  innumerable  variety  of 
religious  persuasions  in  America. 

The  Episcopal,  or  English  Church  as  it  is  often 
called,  appears,  although  it  has  no  connexion 
with  the  government,  to  be  the  only  steady  church 
in  the  United  States,  keeping  up  an  impregnable 
respectability  by  adhering  to  the  Liturgy  and  to 
written  sermons;  a  salutary  practice  that  has 
hitherto  rendered  it  the  hope  and  asylum  of  all 
educated  people  in  that  country:  but  the  dissent- 
ing churches,  on  the  other  hand,  seem  to  be  rath- 
er at  sixes  and  sevens,  and  although  many  of 
them  are  temporarily  popular,  and  filled  to  re- 
pletion by  occasional  favourite  preachers,  yet 
they  are  as  prone  to  empty  themselves  again, 
upon  the  manifestation  of  any  innovation  in  their 
doctrine  or  manners.  The  slightest  deviation  oi 
opinion  or  sanctity  on  the  part  of  a  favourite 
preacher  is  sure  to  raise  up  a  party  of  pious  cen- 
sors, and  thus  cliques  are  formed  in  a  congrega- 
tion, upon  the  principle  that  it  is  quite  wrong  not 
to  hate  people  with  a  perfect  hatred  that  will  not 
be  of  your  opinion,  and  quite  right  to  take  sides 
against  them  who  permit  themselves  to  be  found 
out.  Then  comes  the  natural  operation  of  the 
voluntary  principle,  the  breaking  up  of  a  con- 
gregation, and  the  formation  of  a  new  seel. 

I  have  heard  this  very  common  fermentatory 
process  much  commended,  as  one  which,  by  cre- 
ating numerous  sects,  secures  the  United  States 
from  the  preponderance  of  any  one:  a  kind  of 
logic  which  perhaps  will  not  convince  every- 
body, since  it  is  not  yet  quite  so  clear  that  the 
possession  of  a  great  many  things  of  doubtful 
and  fluctuating  importance  is  better  than  that  of 
one  whose  excellence  and  integrity  has  for  so 
long  a  period  protected  it  from  serious  schisms. 
Experience  seems  to  teach,  that  to  become  rea- 
sonable in  this  life,  man  is  as  much  in  want  of  a 
little  steady  spiritual  influence  to  guide  his  mor- 
al way,  as  of  legal  authority  to  restrain  his  phys- 
ical actions;  and  time  will  show  whether  this  is 
not  as  applicable  to  the  United  States  as  to  t^ie 
mother  country,  which  owes  so  much  of  its  mor- 


56 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


al  position  to  the  union  of  Church  and  State. 
As  to  the  Campbellites,  whom  I  saw  upon  this 
occasion,  there  certainly  was  nothing  vulgar 
amongst  them  ;  as  far  as  appearances  went,  they 
might — for  aught  I  could  discover — have  been 
Episcopalians;  and  I  was  curious  to  learn  what 
were  the  opinions  or  doctrines  which  had — for 
the  moment — united  so  many  polite  people.  A 
lady,  tp  whom  I  spoke  on  the  subject,  and  who 
was  a  Campbellite  herself,  was  kind  enough  to 
ask  me  to  drink  tea  with  her,  and  meet  one  of 
their  popular  preachers,  a  Mr.  F*  *****.  I 
willingly  accepted  the  invitation,  and  passed  a 
very  pleasant  evening.  The  amount  of  informa- 
tion 1  collected  was,  that  Mr.  Campbell,  the  found- 
er of  the  sect,  was  an  Irishman,  and  that  they 
agreed  perfectly  with  most  other  religious  com- 
munities on  one  point,  to  wit,  that  they  were  quite 
right,  and  all  other  persuasions  quite  wrong. 
They  deny  all  priesthood,  and  their  preachers  are 
consequently  not  ordained,  but  are  elected  by 
their  congregations,  and  are  men  not  above  the 
middle  age.  All  the  members  of  this  sect  call 
each  other  brother  and  sister,  and  marriage  is  a 
mere  civil  ceremony  amongst  them,  wanting 
even  the  formality  observed  in  the  union  of  dua- 
kers.  They  are  Baptists  too,  and  have  public 
immersions.  Mr.  F*  *****  entered  into  a 
conversation  with  me  respecting  their  religious 
opinions,  which  I  would  willingly  have  declined 
at  that  time,  there  being  three  or  four  very  pret- 
ty women  present;  but  he  pressed  me  rather  hard, 
and  being  a  fine-looking  man  of  about  34,  natu- 
rally felt  interested  in  vindicating  the  sect  before 
so  many  handsome  sisters.  After  some  explana- 
tions, he  repeatedly  told  me  they  could  not  be 
wrong,  because  the  New  Testament  was  the  true 
guide  for  the  universal  church  of  Christ,  and  that 
they  had  constituted  it  theirs.  I  asked  him  if  he 
understood  Hebrew  and  Greek,  to  which  he  re- 
plied that  he  understood  nothing  but  English,  and 
did  not  want  any  other  kind  of  learning  to  under- 
stand the  Testament.  Upon  this  I  contented  my- 
self with  saying,  that  those  who  faithfully  ob- 
served the  precepts  contained  in  it  would  no 
doubt  lead  innocent  and  happy  lives,  but  that  I 
believed  even  his  translation  did  not  authorise 
him  to  say  that  other  Christians  were  wrong: 
that  the  Testament,  nevertheless,  was  but  a  trans- 
lation from  another  language,  and  that  all  trans- 
lations were  so  far  liable  to  error  as  to  be  sub- 
ject to  different  constructions :  if  translations 
then,  were  liable  to  misconstructionr  who  was 
likely  tp  be  right — the  learned  men  who  had  deep- 
ly studied  the  Testament  and  the  history  of  the 
church  of  Christ  in  the  ancient  languages,  or 
those  who,  knowing  no  language  but  English,  had 
no  light  but  conjecture  and  party-feeling  to  guide 
them  in  their  doubts  1  That  it  appeared  to  me 
as  a  matter  of  course,  if  men  were  divided  into 
two  sects,  one  believing  in  the  validity  of  an  or- 
der of  priesthood,  and  another  disbelieving  it 
that  the  sect  founded  and  kept  up  by  men  with- 
out human  learning  was  more  likely  to  have  de- 
parted from  the  truth,  and  was  more  likely  to 
disappear,  than  the  Episcopal  Church,  which 
was  but  a  copy  of  that  of  the  mother  country 
the  divine  authority  of  which  had  been  so  wel 
illustrated  by  the  learning  and  holiness  of  the 
great  scholars  and  divines  that  had  adorned  so 
many  generations. 

He  made  no  reply  to  this,  merely  saying  tha 
he  did  not  know  the  -ancient  languages,  bu 
that  he  wished  he  did,  as  he  knew  what  an 
advantage  learning  gave  to  men.  One  of  the 


adies,  who  did  not  seem  pleased  at  the  turn  the 
:onversation  had  taken,  asked  me  if  I  seriously 
nought  that  "  Campbellism"  ever'would  "fall 
hrough;"  to  which  I  replied,  that  I  could  not 
lure  to  suppose  so,  as  long  as  all  the  pretty 
women  and  handsome  preachers  combined  to 
ceep  it  up  ;  upon  which  she  good-naturedly  said, 
he  believed  I  "  was  making  fun  of  them  all," 
and  then  I  took  my  leave. 

The  geology  of  this  part  of  the  country  is  ex- 
remely  interesting.  We  had  now  left  behind 
us  the  highly  inclined  strata  of  the  Silurian  sys- 
em,  and  had  got  upon  horizontal  beds,  evident- 
y  the  equivalents  of  those  of  the  mountain-lime- 
tone of  England  ;  many  of  which,  in  the  neigh- 
>ourhood  of  Nashville,  have  been,  with  their 
fossils,  accurately  made  out  by  Dr.  Troost.  The 
•ocks  of  the  Cumberland  mountains  constitute  a 
ofty  chain,  which  forms  the  boundary  betwixt  the 
states  of  Kentucky  and  Virginia,  and  runs  thence 
o  the  north-east.  The  great  bituminous  coal- 
ield  of  the  western  country  appears  to  lie  prin- 
cipally west  of  this  chain,  at  the  summit  of  which 
ndications  of  coal  are  found ;  and  the  geological 
)osition  of  the  Nashville  beds  may  be  deduced, 
ndependent  of  their  fossils,  from  the  section 
which  the  course  of  the  Cumberland  river  has 
opened,  from  its  source  in  the  state  of  Kentucky 
to  Nashville  in  Tennessee,  a  distance  of  about 
300  miles. 

At  the  falls  of  this  river,  in  Whitely  County: 
Kentucky,  the  river,  leaving  the  sandstone  of 
the  coal  measures,  has  worn  its  way  through  a 
quartzose  conglomerate  grit,  united  by  silicious 
and  argillaceous  cement,  to  the  depth  of  about 
500  feet,  and  continues  to  flow  over  it  for  some 
distance  beyond  the  falls.  Pursuing  its  way,  it 
next  cuts  through  a  bed,  consisting  principally 
of  shale,  about  200  feet  thick,  in  which  are  three 
horizontal  veins  of  good  bituminous  coal,  each 
from  three  and  a  half  to  four  and  a  half  feet 
thick.  The  river  runs  on  the  bottom  of  this  bed, 
about  three  miles  below  the  mouth  of  Laurel 
river,  and  the  banks  continue  to  expose  the  coal 
veins  for  a  distance  of  seven  miles  below  Rock 
Castle  River :  here  the  Cumberland  has  cut  into 
a  bed  of  compact  limestone  with  an  oolitic  struc- 
ture— similar  to  the  oolitic  bed  of  the  mountain 
limestone  of  England  —  about  300  feet  thick. 
To  this  succeeds  a  series  of  horizontal  calcare- 
ous beds,  about  200  feet  thick,  which,  at  the 
mouth  of  Big  Indian  Creek,  show  themselves  in 
the  banks,  together  with  a  seam  of  bituminous 
shale,  which  is  20  feet  thick  at  Big  Indian  Creek, 
and  is  continued  at  Harpeth  Ridge  near  Nash- 
ville. Near  to  the  creek  the  river  has  worn  its 
channel  into  the  flat  beds  of  limestone  which  are 
found  at  Nashville,  and  which  maybe  estimated 
at  300  feet  thick,  dowrf  to  the  junction  of  the 
Cumberland  with  the  Ohio.  The  section  of 
these  beds  would  appear  thus  : 

Conglomerate  grit 500 

Shale  with  coal 200 

Compact  limestone 300 

Horizontal  calcareous  beds 200 

Bituminous  shale 20 

Lower  series  of  beds  to  the  Ohio  ...     300 
T52T 

Many  of  these  beds,  all  of  which  are  horizon- 
tal, contain  fossils.  In  the  compact  limestone  a 
trilobite  is  found,  which  appears  not  to  differ 
from  the  Calymene  Blnmenbachii,  but  it  is  so 
incorporated  with  the  rock,  that  I  have  never 
procured  a  specimen  that  was  not  much  mutila- 
ted; and,  as  has  been  mentioned  before,  the 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


57 


chert  in  the  seams  is  often  beautifully  agatized 
with  a  chalcedonic  botryoidal  appearance. 

The  lowest  point  at  which  1  had  an  opportu- 
nity (I  did  not  pursue  the  Cumberland  to  the 
Ohio)  of  examining  the  series  was  on  the  shore 
of  the  Cumberland  at  Nashville,  the  river  being 
then  very  low.  The  various  beds  through  which 
the  rivei  has  cut  its  channel,  and  which  also 
appear  in  parts  of  the  neighbouring  country, 
vary  a  good  deal  in  their  crystalline  structure 
and  in  their  organic  remains.  The  lowest  on 
the  shore  of  the  Cumberland  were  of  a  dark  blu- 
ish grey  colour,  with  a  structure  between  that  of 
old  granular  and  compact  secondary  limestone  : 
they  occasionally  abounded  with  nodules  of  sili- 
ceous matter  resembling  chert,  black  outside, 
but  greyish  within,  their  mineral  substance  ap- 
pearing to  have  been  infiltrated  into  cavities  that 
perhaps  once  contained  organic  matter.  The 
rocks  were  -frequently  covered  with  fucoidal 
strings  and  zoophytes,  that  had  become  quite 
black  by  exposure  to  the  sun  when  the  river  was 
low  ;  and  of  these  the  characteristic  marks  were 
obliterated,  and  their  surfaces  rounded  off  by 
aqueous  attrition  and  exposure ;  they  stood,  how- 
ever, in  singular  relief,  the  calcareous  matter 
having  been  rubbed  away  and  the  siliceous  mat- 
ter left.  Favosites,  quite  black,  were  in  abun- 
dance, in  large  irregular  round  masses,  with  sharp 
crisped  circles ;  these,  as  well  as  the  Stromato- 
pora,  with  concentric  lamina  and  tubercules, 
are  called  by  the  country  people  "  petrified  buf- 
falo dung."  Here  also  is  found  a  long  concam- 
erated  shell,  which  Dr.  Troost  has  called  "  Co- 
nolubularia,"  which  I  have  seen  before  on  the 
limestone  beds,  near  the  Saguenay  River,  in 
Lower  Canada.  The  other  zoophytes  belonging 
to  this  bed,  which  I  saw,  such  as  calamopora, 
columnaria,  &c.,.were  all  siliceous. 

In  a  superior  bed,  the  cavities  were  filled  with 
interesting  accidental  minerals,  their  walls  being 
lined  with  carbonate  of  lime,  upon  which  beau- 
tiful crystals  of  strontian,  of  a  fine  sky  blue  col- 
our, sulphate  of  barytes,-  fluate  of  lime,  fibrous 
gypsum,  and  crystals  of  sulphuret  of  zinc  upon 
brown  spar,  often  appeared,  as  they  sometimes 
occur  in  a  galeniferous  district.  This  lime- 
stone, when  rubbed,  has  a  faint  smell  of  bitu- 
men. Dr.  Troost  pointed  out  to  me,  in  the 
banks  of  the  Cumberland,  a  conglomerated  bed 
of  dead  shells,  fractured,  and  much  comminu- 
ted, where  all  the  valves  appeared  to  be  single, 
at  least  I  could  find  no  bivalves  that  adhered  to 
each  other.  This  must  have  been  a  bed  of  dead 
shells  before  the  rock  became  indurated.  It  lies 
between  two  beds  of  compact  limestone,  and  is 
in  some  places  15  feet  thick,  whilst  in  others  it 
thins  off  to  one  or  two  feet,  and  then  disappears, 
as  though  it  had  been  an  ancient  drift  of  broken 
shells.  Lying,  as  it  does,  betwixt  beds  filled 
with  perfect  bivalves  and  other  unmutilated  fos- 
sils, it  is  a  remarkable  deposit,  which  speaks 
volumes  about  the  ancient  state  of  the  submarine 
surface  of  the  earth.  Above  these  beds  is  a  stra- 
tum of  coarse  granular  limestone,  covered  al- 
most with  that  beautiful  fossil  called  Strophome- 
na  rugosa. 

But  there  is  a  ridge  near  Nashville,  called 
Harpeth  Ridge,  where  a  good  section  of  some  of 
the  beds  of  the  vicinity  can  be  obtained,  and  Dr. 
Troost  was  kind  enough  to  accompany  me  there. 
This  ridge  seems  to  be  an  outline  of  the  ancient 
surface  of  the  country  before  it  was  lowered  by 
the  removal  of  so  many  strata,  and  rises  con- 
spicuously above  the  level  of  Nashville,  with  a 


strong  bed  of  argillaceous  sandstone  at  the  top. 
The  three  principal  beds  of  which  it  consists, 
superadded  to  the  subjacent  strata,  including  the 
lowest  calcareous  bed  on  the  Cumberland  Riv- 
er, near  to  Nashville,  give  the  following  section 
of  this  part  of  the  country,  consisting  of  nine  dis- 
tinct beds  of  limestone  and  sandstone,  sometimes 
separated  from  each  other  by  dull  slaty  lime- 
stones and  other  seams  of  mineral  matter. 


Feet 

No.  1.   75 

No.  2.  10 

No.  3.    15 

No.  4.   10 

HARPETH  RIDGE. 

An  argillaceous  sandstone,  sometimes  cher- 
ty,  sometimes  granular.  No  organic  bod- 
ies in  the  granular  part,  but  contains  en- 
eremites  in  the  calcareous  seams  towards 
the  bottom.  This  bed  reappears  in  various 
other  parts  of  Tennessee,  but  has  general- 
ly been  caried  away  with  many  of  the 
subordinate  beds.  Nashville,  and  a  great 
part  of  the  adjacent  country,  are  on  the 
the  bare  limestone.  The  ridges  towards 
the  N.E.  are  sharp,  have  abrupt  projec- 
tions, and  steep  declivities  ;  whilst  on  the 
opposite  side  the  slopes  are  gentle,  and 
the  crowns  of  the  hills  rounded,  as  though, 
a  current  had  retired  that  way. 

Compact  limestone,  abounding  in  fossils 
where  it  is  cherty.  Encrinites,  trilobites, 
gorgonia  antiqua. 

Encrinital  limestone.  Echinodermata.  Tur- 
binolia.  Flustra.  Spirifers.  Alternates 
occasionally  with  sandstone.  The  fossil 
bodies  sometimes  siliceous. 

Slaty  clay  or  shale,  often  bituminous.  This 
bed  reappears  in  other  parts  of  the  dis*- 
trict  :  contains  reniform  masses  of  sulphu- 
ret of  iron. 

No.  5.     8 
No.  6.   12 

NO.  7.     6 
No.  8.    12 

No.  9.    15 

Granular  sandstone. 

Coarse  granular  limestone,  with  a  slight 
green  chloritic  stain.  Asterias.  Stropho- 
mena  rugosa.  Calymene  Blumenbachii, 
asaphus  platycephalus,  pentamerus,  cate- 
nipora,  ceriopora,  &c. 

Argillaceous  limestone,  with  trilobites  and 
calamapora,  &c.,  separated  from  No.  6  by 
a  partial  bed  of  broken  dead  shells. 

A  tough  compact  grey  limestone.  Ortho- 
cera.  Conotubularia.  Favosites.  Tur- 
bo bicarinatus  covering  whole  plates  of 
the  limestone. 

Granular  limestone  of  a  bluish  black  grey 
colour,  when  fractured  shows  reddish 
points.  Cherty  bodies  jn  cavities.  Co- 
notubularia. Favosites.  Stromotopora. 
Accidental  minerals,  strontian,  brown 
spar,  zinc,  <fec.,  <fec. 

A  little  south  from  Nashville  there  is  a  vein 
of  crystalline  sulphate  of  barytes,  10  or  12  feet 
wide,  of  a  yellowish  grey  colour,  in  the  cavities 
of  which  well-defined  crystals  are  found.  I  also 
observed  in  the  vicinity  another  vein  of  compact 
sulphate  of  barytes,  traversing  Brown's  Creek> 
with  galena  disseminated  in  it ;  it  is  far,  there* 
fore,  from  being  improbable  that  these  are  indi- 
cations of  productive  deposits  of  sulphuret  of 
lead. 

Of  all  these  fossils  and  minerals  I  made  a  very 
good  collection,  besides  adding  greatly  to  my 
collection  of  unios,  of  the  most  beautiful  varie- 
ties of  which  the  Cumberland  River  contains  a 
surprising  abundance.  This  molluscous  animal 
delights  in  the  rivers  that  flow  through  a  calca- 
reous country,  and  certainly  flourishes  more  in 
the  streams  that  empty  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
than  in  those  that  flow  into  the  Atlantic.  This 
predilection  of  theirs  is  a  fact  worth  inquiring 
into.  Whether  it  be  the  effect  of  the  abundance 
of  calcareous  matter,  the  softness  of  the  climate, 
or  to  their  being  direct  congeners  to  the  unios 
which  inhabit  the  Mexican  and  South  American 
rivers,  the  fact  is  now  well  ascertained  that  very 
few  of  the  beautiful  varieties  which  live  in  the 
Western  waters  are  found  in  the  Atlantic  streams 


58 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


and  it  appears  that  where  they  are  mixed  to- 
gether, it  is  generally  at  the  heads  of  great  riv- 
ers flowing  in  contrary  directions,  which,  at 
periods  of  high  water,  occasionally  flow  into 
-each  other.  But  where  were  all  these  fresh- 
water bivalves  when  the  whole  country  was  un- 
der the  salt  ocean  1  If  they  are  a  creation  since 
the  establishment  of  the  existing  rivers,  may  not 
each  race  of  them  have  been  produced  where 
they  now  live,  and  their  various  appearance  be 
the  consequence  of  an  adaptation  to  the  circum- 
stances which  influence  their  structure? 

On  the  4th  of  October,  having  despatched  all 
my  collections  in  casks  to  New  Orleans,  to  be 
forwarded  to  New  York,  and  taken  places  in  the 
stage-coach  for  Louisville  in  Kentucky,  I  called 
upon  my  various  friends  at  Nashville  to  thank 
them  for  the  very  kind  attentions  we  had  receiv- 
ed, and  to  bid  them  adieu.  I  had  received  very 
pleasing  impressions  both  of  the  inhabitants  and 
the  place,  and  was  glad  that  I  had  visited  it.  At 
the  inn  where  we  staid  we  led  a  very  quiet  life  ; 
they  soon  ceased  to  stare  at  our  bringing  rocks 
and  shells  home,  and  let  us  do  just  as  we  pleas- 
ed. Having  become  a  little  accustomed  to  dirt, 
too,  the  sight  of  it  was  not  so  distressing  as  it 
used  to  be.  The  table  was  pretty  good :  I  sel- 
dom dined  at  it,  but  the  people  very  obligingly 
gave  me  something  to  eat  at  my  own  hours,  and 
I  expressed  my  satisfaction  to  them  on  paying 
my  bill. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Leave  Nashville — The  Barrens  of  Kentucky — The  Mam- 
moth Cave— First  View  of  the  Ohio  River- Arrival  at 
Louisville— Falls  of  the  Ohio— Henry  Clay,  his  great 
popularity— Captain  Jack  of  the  Citizen  Steamer,  a  most 
catawampous  Navigator— Public  indifference  to  the  loss 
of  Life  in  new  Countries— Explanation  of  "a  Sin  to 
Crockett." 

AT  one  o'clock  A.M.,  October  5th,  we  bade 
adieu  to  Nashville,  and  after  proceeding  about 
fifteen  miles  north  of  the  Cumberland,  the  coun- 
try began  to  rise  rapidly.  At  the  dawn  of  day 
the  stage-coach  going  very  slowly  up  hill,  I  glad- 
ly got  out  and"  walked,  and  when  we  had  reached 
the  summit  of  the  plateau,  found  we  were  upon 
beds  of  limestone  bearing  small  fan-shaped  sul- 
cated  impressions  resembling  others  I  had  seen 
near  Sparta,  and  which  appeared  to  have  been 
made  by  marine  fuci.  For  some  distance  the 
road  passed  through  a  valley  focmed  by  chains  of 
Knobs,  as  they  are  called  here,  which  are  calca- 
reous hummocks  somewhat  resembling  those  in 
the  country  betwixt  Kingston  and  the  Cumber- 
land mountains.  The  districts  here  are  of  a 
secondary  quality,  and  the  Kentucky  people  call 
them  Barrens,  because  they  are  not  as  fertile  as 
the  rich  low  lands  which  are,  occupied  by  the 
first  settlers.  In  this  they  imitate  the  Dutch  peo- 
ple who  settled  the  fertile  bottoms  of  the  Mohawk 
river  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  A  Dutchman  would 
say  he  had  so  many  morgens  of  land,  and  a  mile 
of  berg;  but  be  never  would  dignify  the  hills  with 
the  name  of  land.  These  barrens,  however,  have 
tolerably  good  timber  upon  ihem,  and  when  the 
population  of  the.  State  renders  it  necessary  to 
occupy  them,  they  will  he^fonnd  to  be  good  sec- 
ondary soils,  for  in  many  parts  of  them  I  saw  good 
tobacco  and  corn  growing.  At  present  it  is  an 
uninteresting  country,  not  broken  up  enough  for 
a  geologist,  and  the  settlers  are  so  poor  and  slov- 
enly that,  with  very  few  exceptions,  there  is  no- 
thing but  dirt  to  be  seen  in  the  taverns;  so  that, 


of  course,  there  is  nothing  like  comfort  to  be  ob- 
tained in  them.  There  was  always  some  dinner 
provided  for  the  stage-coach,  but  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  sit  down  to  such  miserable  stuff,  and  1 
found  it  a  better  plan  to  wander  and  look  about, 
and  use  my  increased  appetite  as  a  sauce  to  the 
bad  suppers  we  got.  We  found  the  peopJe,  how- 
ever, civil  and  obliging;  they  are  cut  off  from 
every  source  of  improvement,  and  seem  content- 
ed with  the  comfortless  condition  they  exist  in, 
because  they  know  no  better.  We  arrived  at  the 
Bowling  Green  at  night,  where  there  is  a  tavern 
of  some  pretensions,  and  here  I  got  a  wretched 
bed  to  lie  down  upon  for  a  few  hours.  In  the 
morning  we  started  again,  and  crossed  the  Big 
Barren,  an  extensive  and  important  tributary  of 
Green  River,  which  traverses  the  western  part  of 
Kentucky  and  empties  itself  into  the  Ohio.  We 
breakfasted  at  a  Mr.  Bell's,  the  nearest  inn,  I  be. 
lieve,  to  the  Mammoth  Cave,  about  the  great  ex- 
tent of  which  much  has  been  said.  Its  mouth  is 
in  a  valley  of  horizontal  limestone,  not  far  from 
Green  River,  and,  like  most  caves  of  great  magni- 
tude, such  as  that  of  Carinthia  near  Laybach,  St. 
Michael's  at  Gibraltar,  and  the  Helderberg  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  all  of  which  I  have  visited, 
is  composed  of  numerous  galleries  and  branches, 
presenting  occasionally  vaulted  domes,  pools  of 
water,  deep  pits,  with  depending  stalactites  and 
other  calcareous  minerals.  One  of  the  domes  of 
this  cave  is  said  to  be  120  feet  high,  and  from 
the  great  extent  of  the  place  where  it  rises,  it  has 
been  appropriately  chough  called  the  Temple.  I 
was  told  that  the  cave  extends  two  miles  from 
its  mouth,  and  that  the  length  of  all  the  galleries 
taken  together  exceeds  seven  miles;  so  that  it 
must  be  a  severe  day's  work  to  any  one  who 
would  undertake  to  visit  every  known  part  of  it. 
Nitrous  earth  is  found  here  in  great  quantities, 
and  the  cavs  must  be  a  surprising  curiosity  to 
those  who  have  never  visited  such  places.  We 
had  DO  time  to  go  there,  and  very  little  inclina- 
tion to  delay  the  progress  of  our  journey,  time  be- 
ginning to  be  precious.  We  were  informed,  how- 
ever, that  the  mouth  of  the  cave  was  the  source 
of  some  revenue  to  the  proprietor  who  owned 
the  land,  and  that  he  was  extremely  averse  to  any 
one  taking  a  plan  of  it,  lest  a  shaft  should  be  sunk 
into  it  in  another  part  and  an  opposition  portal 
set  up.  These  caves  appear  to  be  very  numer- 
ous in  this  part  of  Kentucky,  What  are  called 
sink-holes  are  constantly  to  be  seen  on  the  surface 
of  the  land.  These  are  circular  depressions  in 
the  form  of  reversed  cones,  sometimes  25  feet 
deep;  they  appear  to  be  sections  of  cavities  in 
the  limestone,  and  frequently  lead  to  a  cave.  I 
observed  a  very  ingenious  use  which  some  of  the 
farmers  had  made  of  them.  If  there  is  an  orifice 
at  the  bottom  they  cover  it  well  over,  and  then 
plastering  the  whole  with  clay  the  sink-hole  be- 
comes an  excellent  pond  of  water  for  their  cattle 
and  for  domestic  uses.  The  soil  in  this  part  of 
the  country  is  sometimes  very  red,  and  I  havfr. 
frequently  had  water,  after  rain,  brought  to  int. 
to  wash  with  so  muddy  and  red  that  I  could  hot 
use  it.  The  country-people,  however,  are  so  ac- 
customed to  the  water  in  this  state  that  they  do 
not  object  to  it. 

We  crossed  Green  River,  a  pretty  stream  re- 
semblin?  Caney  Fork  in  Tennessee,  at  Mum- 
ford's  Ville,  a  singularly  shabby  looking  place, 
notwitdstanding  its  fine  name.  Towards  even- 
ing we  met  the  Tennessee  race-horses  on  theit 
return  from  the  Louisville  races,  where  they  had 
triumphed  over  the  Kentucky  horses,  to  the'great 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


mortification  of  the  Kentuckians.  At  Elizabeth 
Town,  a  pretty  thriving  place,  where  we  arrived 
after  sunset,  we  got  a  comfortable  supper  at  a 
tolerably  good  house,  and  resumed  our  journey 
at  midnight  amidst  torrents  of  rain.  At  length, 
towards  morning,  we  began  to  descend  the  great 
table-land  we  had  so  long  been  crossing,  and 
were  evidently  approaching  some  valley  where 
the  general  drainage  of  the  country  was  carried 
on ;  the  land  became  flatter  and  more  fertile,  the 
forests  exceedingly  thick,  and  the  trees  of  such 
great  magnitude  in  comparison  with  those  we  had 
left  behind  that  without  seeing  the  famous  Ohio 
River  we  were  quite  sure  we  were  upon  the  al- 
luvial deposit  adjacent  to  it.  When  we  were 
least  thinking  of  it  we  came  to  a  clearing,  and 
an  immense  river  appeared  before  us.  "  That 
must  be  the  Ohio  !"  was  our  mutual  exclama- 
tion, and  so  it  was,  just  where  Salt  River  emp- 
ties into  it.  I  was  perfectly  delighted  with  this 
magnificent  stream,  and  ample  as  was  its  volume, 
could  not  but  think  of  what  it  was  in  ancient 
times  when  it  covered  all  the  rich  flat  land  we 
had  passed  over  on  its  south  side  for  the  last  two 
miles.  Nothing  can  be  more  fertile  and  beauti- 
ful than  this  land,  which,  in  every  part,  is  cov- 
ered with  noble  trees. 

We  entered  Louisville  at  one  P.  M.,  by  way  of 
the  race-course,  which  seems  to  be  well  laid  out, 
and  is  kept  up  with  much  care.  At  the  City 
Hotel  we  (buna  excellent  accommodations,  equal 
in  many  particulars  to  those  in  the  Atlantic  cities. 
Certainly  it  is  a  very  great  luxury  to  repose  a 
<3ay  or  two  in  one  of  these  good  inns  after  so 
much  suffering  for  want  of  food  and  rest;  and 
here,  besides  other  comforts,  we  not  only  found 
a  table  abundantly  supplied,  but  things  to  cor- 
respond in  a  manner  that  would  keep  any  criti- 
cal epicure  in  good  humour. 

Louisville  is  a  well  laid-out  town,  advanta- 
geously placed  on  the  south  bank  of  the  Ohio, 
and  accessible  to  the  portly  steamers  that  con- 
stantly resort  to  it.  It  has  three  wide  streets  par- 
allel to  the  river,  each  of  them  80  feet  broad. 
The  principal  of  these  is  Main  Street,  which  is 
quite  a  busy  place,  and  nearly  as  much  built  up, 
as  I  remember  Broadway,  the  principal  street  of 
the  now  populous  city  of  New  York,  to  have 
been  in  1806.  These  streets  are  crossed  at  right 
angles  by  other  streets  leading  into  the  country. 
The  town  fronts  what  are  called  the  "Falls  of 
the  Ohio,"  an  extensive  rapid  about  two  miles 
long,  with  a  fall  in  the  bed  of  the  river  of  about 
twelve  feet  to  the  mile.  To  avoid  these  falls  and 
make  the  navigation  continuous,  a  canal  has 
been  constructed  on  the  south  side  near  to  the 
city  from  the  western  termination  at  Portland  to 
deep  water  near  the  town.  This  is  a  costly 
•work,  and  the  lock  at  the  west  end  for  admitting 
steamers  is  very  capacious.  The  bed  of  the 
Ohio,  comprehending  the  widest  part  of  the  falls, 
is  about  one  mile  and  a  half  across,  and,  most 
fortunately  for  me,  the  river  was  unusually  low 
at  this  time,  so  that  about  three  quarters  of  a 
mile  of  the  bed  of  the  river  was  quite  bare  and 
dry,  and  I  could  walk  about  in  every  direction  on 
the  flat  limestone  beds,  which  abounded  with  fos- 
sils. The  channel  of  the  river  when  the  water 
is  so  low  is  near  the  north  bank,  on  the  shore  of 
the  State  of  Indiana,  and  at  such  times  you  can 
•walk  with  great  security  to  a  few  islands  which 
are  between  it  and  the  city.  One  half  of  one  of 
these  islands  was  carried  away  in  the  spring  of 
this  year  to  the  .base,  and  a  beautiful  bed  of  en- 
crinites  became  thus  uncovered.  Near  to  an- 


other of  these  islands  some  men  were  engaged  in 
a  limestone  quarry  for  the  use  of  the  city,  and  as 
the  rock  peeled  off  in  seams  of  from  eight  to 
twelve  inches,  it  disclosed  a  surprising  abun- 
dance of  rare  fossils,  many  of  which  I  had  never 
seen  before,  and  of  which  I  made  a  rich  collec- 
tion. Most  of  the  beds  of  limestone  are  bitumi- 
nous, and  the  smell  in  some  of  them  amounts  to 
fetor.  Petroleum  is  found  in  many  cavities,  and 
I  was  informed  that  when  they  were  engaged  in 
blasting  the  beds  lor  constructing  the  canal,  they 
came  to  places  where  a  gallon  of  the  mineral  oil 
could  be  collected  during  the  twenty-four  hours. 
The  frequency  of  this  phenomenon  has  led  some 
persons  to  suppose  that  all  the  deposits  of  bitu- 
minous coal  are  not  of  vegetable  origin. 

Upon  the  whole  Louisville  is  a  prosperous  and 
agreeable  place,  and  appears  to  be  under  the 
government  of  judicious  magistrates.  The  man- 
ner of  paving  the  streets  pleased  me  very  much; 
after  being  well  graduated,  seams  of  limestone 
from  the  Ohio  are  set  upon  their  edges  close  to 
each  other,  and  are  then  covered  with  the  mac- 
adamised metal.  The  place,  however,  is  not  at 
all  times  equally  active,  its  business  being  much, 
influenced  by  the  state  of  the  water:  when  it  has 
rained  in  the  upper  country  and  the  river  rises, 
everything  is  life  and  bustle,  and  the  people  are 
as  active  as  the  Egyptians  when  the  Nile  is  on 
the  increase;  steamers  are  immediately  put  in 
motion,  and  travellers  are  moving  in  every  di- 
rection. Large  steamers  of  500  tons  burthen  are 
constantly  arriving  and  departing.  I  visited  one  of 
this  class  called  'The  Mediterranean,'  which  was 
fitted  out  in  a  very  convenient  and  handsome  man- 
ner. Families  in  these  boats  can  have  good  state 
cabins  to  themselves,  and  are  furnished  with  an 
abundant  and  well-dressed  table.  Wine,  spirits, 
bottled  porter,  ale,  &c.,  are  sold  by  the  steward ; 
so  that  nothing  is  wanting  to  mitigate  the  tedium 
of  a  long  voyage  to  New  Orleans  or  any  other 
place.  Besides  the  first  class  of  passengers  the 
steamers  receive  a  great  quantity  of  merchan- 
dise, and  many  passengers  of  the  lower  classes, 
who  are  entirely  separated  from  the  others  and 
who  find  their  own  provisions.  When  the  wa- 
ter is  low,  few  of  the  large  steamers  venture 
above  the  falls,  as  they  are  apt  to  run  aground 
on  the  shoals,  and  remain  there  a  long  time. 

The  Kentuckians  are  an  enteprising,  indus- 
trious, and  united  people ;  they  inhabit  a  beau- 
tiful country,  and  cultivate  a  generous  soil. 
With  a  magnificent  river  upon  their  frontier, 
that  can  convey  their  tobacco,  pork,  corn,  and 
their  other  various  productions,  to  every  part  of 
the  earth,  they  seem  to  have  all  the  elements 
within  themselves  of  permanent  prosperity.  The 
people,  too,  do  not  appear  to  have  been  demor- 
alised by  low  demagogues  to  the  extent  that  they 
have  been  in  some  of  the  other  States,  and  hence 
are  not  so  much  under  their  influence,  but  rather 
listen  to  the  precepts  and  imitate  the  examples  of 
their  superiors.  Of  these  the  acknowledged 
leader  is  Henry  Clay:  his  name,  which  is  so 
well  known  through  the  United  States,  operates 
like  a  talisman  whenever  it  is  mentioned  in  Ken- 
tucky. There  is  not  a  man  in  the  State  but  is 
proud  that  Mr.  Clay  is  a  Kentuckian.  Indeed, 
identified  as  all  his  interests  are  with  the  State ; 
being  the  most  extensive  farmer,  the  most  spir- 
ited improver  of  all  the  breeds  of  cattle,  horses, 
and  mules,  the  most  affable  of  men  to  all  classes, 
having  an  established  reputation  for  undaunted 
personal  courage,  and  never  having  been  known 
to  do  a  mean  action  either  in  his  public  or  pri- 


60 


TRAVELS    IN   AEERICA. 


vate  capacity,  whilst  during  his  long  political 
career  he  has  been  conspicuous  above  almost  all 
his  fellow-citizens  for  active  and  shining  talents; 
it  is  not  surprising  that  his  character  should 
have  made  an  impression  upon  the  people,  and 
that  they  should  by  their  conduct  acknowledge 
the  advantages  they  derive  from  their  relation 
to  so  eminent  a  person.  What  a  blessing  would 
it  be  to  this  great  republic  if  its  people,  turning 
a  deaf  ear  to  selfish  demagogues,  would  but  con- 
sent to  receive,  even  if  it  were  but  for  one  pres- 
idential term,  so  much  permanent  benefit  as 
they  would  derive  from  his  great  experience,  his 
manly  virtues,  and  honourable  consistency  ! 

The  weather  having  set  in  very  rainy,  and 
being  fatigued  and  disgusted  with  stage-coach 
journeys  in  these  unsettled  countries,  I  turned 
my  attention  to  a  trip  by  water  to  St.  Louis,  in 
the  State  of  Missouri.  There  was  a  very  small 
steamer  called  the  Citizen,  which  was  lying  at 
the  western  end  of  the  canal,  commanded  by 
Captain  Isaac  Jack,  a  native  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
sissippi. When  the  water  in  the  river  is  low, 
these  small  steamers  come  into  play,  and  of 
course  exact  a  much  higher  price  than  when  all 
the  boats  are  running.  Captain  Jack's  boat  had 
a  board  up  by  way  of  advertisement,  signifying 
that  he  was  to  sail  "  to-day  ;"  and  as  the  rain 
made  me  rather  dread  the  horrid  roads  which  I 
should  have  to  travel  over  in  a  land  journey 
across  the  States  of  Indiana  and  Illinois  to  St. 
Louis,  I  walked  early  in  the  morning  to  the  place 
where  the  Citizen  lay,  and  went  on  board  of  her. 
I  found  a  great  many  passengers  there  who  had 
slept  in  the  boat;  and  knowing  what  monstrous 
lies  the  captains  of  these  vessels  tell  to  induce 
passengers  to  embark  with  them,  I  thought  I 
would  speak  with  Captain  Jack  before  I  engaged 
our  berths.  Captain  Jack,  who  was  breakfast- 
ing in  his  cabin,  had  "  considerable"  of  that  buc- 
caneering look  about  him  which  is  common  to 
his  class  on  the  Mississippi.  He  seemed  in  a 
very  great  hurry,  and  was  surrounded  by  a  num- 
ber of  impatient  passengers,  some  of  whom  had 
embarked  merchandise  with  him  with  a  view  of 
being  the  first  to  get  to  St.  Louis  with  their  goods. 
The  truth  was  that  the  captain  had  always  been 
going  "  to-day"  for  several  days  past,  but  had 
not  got  off  yet.  His  custom  every  morning  and 
evening  was  to  set  "  that  bl — d  bykr"  as  he  call- 
ed the  boiler,  a-going  to  make  decoy  steam,  and 
in  this  way  he  had  managed  to  entice  various 
passengers  to  send  their  luggage  on  board.  They 
soon  found  out  the  trick  after  they  had  got  there, 
but  as  the  wharf  was  three  miles  from  Louisville, 
and  Captain  Jack's  blandishments  had  still  some 
influence  with  them,  they  continued  with  him  ; 
and  there  he  kept  them  de  die  in  diem  by  all  sorts 
of  ingenious  expedients  and  mendacious  prom- 
ises, not  one  of  which  had  he  the  slightest  idea 
of  keeping. 

Inquiring  of  him  when  he  intended  to  start,  he 
answered  "At  four  in  the  afternoon  precisely." 
"  How  many  best  berths  have  you  to  spare  1" 
"There's  jist  two,  and  no  more."  "Will  you 
show  me  the  book?"  On  looking  at  it  I  saw 
that  not  one-half  of  the  berths  were  taken,  and 
observed,  "  I  did  not  suppose  he  would  start  with 
so  many  empty  berths,  but  would  wait  for  the 
Eastern  stages  to-morrow,  and  that  I  should  like 
it  as  well."  Now  the  captain  and  I  should  have 
agreed  very  well  on  this  point  if  we  had  been 
alone,  but,  with  the  fear  of  his  passengers  before 
his  eyes,  he  answered,  "  No,  if  you  ain't  aboard 
at  four,  you'll  not  find  me  here;  all won't 


stop  me ;  I  ain't  a-going  to  stop  not  a  minute  fof 
no  stages."  The  passengers,  who  were  attend- 
ing to  our  conversation,  now  seemed  to  take 
courage,  and  assured  me  that  the  boat  would 
start  punctually  at  four,  for  all  the  cargo  was- 
taken  in.  "  Why,"  said  Captain  Jack,  drawing 
up  in  an  attitude  of  offended  honour;  "do  you 
think  I  would  tell  you  a  lie  about  it  for  double 
the  passage-money  1  If  I  would,  I  wish  I  may 
be  etarnally  blown  I  know  whare."  I  was  now 
quite  sure  he  did  dot  intend  to  go  ;  but  hoping  to 
out-general  him,  I  said,  in  a  quiet  way,  <:  I  am 
not  a  man  of  business  ;  I  am  travelling  for  pleas- 
ure ;  two  or  three  days  are  of  no  great  conse- 
quence. They  say  the  water  is  rising  at  Pitts- 
burg,  and  it  will  be  as  comfortable  for  me  to. 
wait  a  day  or  two,  as  to  go  now  and  run  upon 
the  shoals.  If  you  had  been  going  a  couple  of 
days  hence,  it  might  have  suited  some  of  us,  for 
yours  is  a  nice-looking  boat ;"  which,  indeed,  it 
was.  This  rather  "slumped"  Captain  Jack, 
and  he  left  off  swearing  by  four  o'clock,  know- 
ing that  another  steamer  was  advertised  to  sail 
immediately  after  him,  and  fearing  lest  he  should 
drive  me  to  go  to  that.  He  looked  piteously  at 
me,  as  much  as  to  say  that  if  we  were  alone  we 
could  come  to  an  understanding.  But  the  pas- 
sengers, alarmed  at  my  proposition,  now  told  him 
to  a  man  they  would  all  go  ashore  if  he  did  not 
go  at  four.  Uttering,  therefore,  the  most  astound- 
ing imprecations,*  and  invoking  the  most  absurd 
horrors  upon  himself  and  his  steamer,  which,  if 
he  did  not  keep  his  word,  he  first  wished  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Ohio,  and  then  at  the  bottom  of  the 
Mississippi,  not  forgetting  to  wish  himself  at  the 
bottom  of  a  much  worse  place,  he  turned  from 
his  passengers,  and  in  a  low,  winning  sort  of  a 
way,  said,  "  Stranger,  if  I  don't  go  at  four,  you 

can  go  back  to  Louisville,  I'll  be if  you. 

can't,  and  that's  fair,  at  any  rate."  I  thought  it 
was  tolerably  so,  and  we  therefore  embarked  our 


A  few  minutes  before  four  the  "  byler"  took 
up  its  part  and  produced  a  little  steam,  and  fora 
few  minutes  there  was  an  appearance  of  bustle 
on  board.  Amidst  all  this,  nobody  had  seen  the 
captain  for  several  hours,  and  he  was  now  miss- 
ing at  the  most  critical  moment.  All  the  an- 
swer we  could  get  from  the  steward  was,  that 
"  the  captain  had  gone  for  the  pilot."  In  the 
mean  time  carts  kept  coming  with  goods,  which 
were  laid  on  the  beach,  evidently  intended  to  be 
shipped:  amongst  these  were  several  small: 
casks  filled  with  gunpowder.  The  hours  slipped 
away,  and  at  eight  o'clock  the  passengers  were 
furious,  for  it  was  too  clear  that  Captain  Jack 
had  "  done"  them  out  of  one  day  more.  At  half- 
past  eight  he  came  on  board,  with  the  appear- 
ance of  a  man  overcome  with  fatigue  and  anxi- 
ety, swearing  lustily  that  he  had  not  been  able 
to  find  the  pilot,  but  had  left  word  with  his  wife 
to  send  him  on ;  that  he  was  a  first-rate  pilot,  "  a 
leetle  slow  or  so  at  moving  abaywt ;"  but  "sar- 
tin  it  was  the  most  onaccountablest  thing  that  he 
had  disa^?/nted  him  so ;  howsumdever,  he'd  be 
here  directly."  I  now  became  spokesman,  and 
ventured  to  tell  Captain  Jack  that  his  four  o'clock, 
had  become  almost  nine,  that  all  his  oaths  were 
broken,  and  that  it  was  evident  he  had  never  in- 

*  An  apology  would  be  due  to  the  reader  if  any  specimen 
•were  detailed,  however  slight,  of  the  tremendous  blasphe- 
mies with  which  men  of  this  class  in  the  Southern  States 
interlard  their  speech.  Oaths,  which  are  only  expletively 
used  by  others,  with  them  form  the  staple  commodity  of 
language  ;  and  the  few  innocent  words,  they  utter  seem  al- 
most to  Ls  afraid  of  coming  in  betwixt  the  claps  of  thunder 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


61 


tended  to  go,  because  the  beach  was  covered 
with  merchandise  and  gunpowder  not  yet  em- 
barked. To  which  he  promptly  answered,  that 
"he  warn't  a-going  to  take  one  single  curse's 
worth  of  it;  and  that  as  to  the  gunpowder,  if  we 
thought  he  was  sich  a  ^accountable  fool  as  to 
take  that  and  ruin  his  insurance,  we  didn't  know 
him;  that  it  might  lie  there  till  all  etarnity  was 
over  for  what  he  cared,  for  he  had  ordered  his 
people  not  to  touch  it." 

The  passengers  now  broke  but  into  a  strain  of 
general  dissatisfaction,  which  he  parried  by  curs- 
ing and  swearing  against  the  pilot  for  "disapynt- 
ing"  him,  and  invoking,  with  the  most  unheard- 
of  blasphemies,  all  sorts  of  evil  to  befal  him  if  he 
did  not  go  punctually  at  nine  the  next  morning. 
*'•  And,"  said  I,  "  what  security  have  you  to  offer 
us  that  you  will  go  in  the  morning,  after  lying  in 
the  way  you  have  done  1  Nobody  believes  you 
about  the  pilot;  and  do  you  think  we  are  such 
fools  as  to  believe  a  word  you  say  about  any 
thing!"  Upon  which  the  fellow  said,  "Stran- 
ger, if  that  ain't  catamount  to  saying  I'm  a  liar, 
then  I  reckon  I  don't  know  nothing;"  and.  turn- 
ing to  the  passengers  with  an  impudent  leer,  add- 
ed, "  Gentlemen,  it's  my  interest  to  give  you 
parfict  satisfaction,  and  if  I  don't  go  to-morrow 
morning  at  nine  to  a  minute,  I'll  treat  you  all  to 
as  much  wine  as  you  can  drink,  and  that's  fair, 
by  — — !"  Thus  caught,  we  remained  all  night 
on  board.  I  rose  with  the  dawn  of  day,  and,  go- 
ing to  the  beach,  saw  that  all  the  goods  were 
gone ;  and  not  doubting  but  that  they  had  been 
taken  on  board  whilst  we  were  all  asleep,  I  in- 
quired of  one  of  the  hands,  and  he  not  only  con- 
firmed it  to  me,  but  showed  me  where  the  gun- 
powder was  stowed  away. 

About  six  the  captain  turned  out,  and  said  he 
was  going  to  town  for  the  pilot ;  but  the  passen- 
gers who  had  been  longest  on  board,  perceiving 
they  had  no  hold  upon  him  at  all,  were  now  be- 
come very  much  incensed,  and  gathered  round 
him.  I  asked  him  where  the  gunpowder  was; 
and  he  immediately  answered  that  he  had  sent 
it  back  to  Louisville  in  a  waggon,  and  even  na- 
med the  merchants  he  had  sent  it  to.  This  I 
told  him  I  did  not  believe  one  word  of;  that  I 
knew  the  gunpowder  was  on  board,  and  it  was 
not  at  all  unlikely  but  that  the  steamer  would  be 
blown  up.  Upon  which,  in  the  most  deliberate 
manner,  he  invoked  every  sort  of  perdition  upon 
his  soul  if  there  was  a  grain  of  gunpowder  in 
the  steamer,  and  offered  to  go  with  any  of  us  and 
examine  the  whole  cargo.  Some  of  the  passen- 
gers now  said  I  was  carrying  the  matter  too  far, 
as  he  did  not  dare  to  carry  gunpowder  on  freight, 
for  it  was  contrary  to  law,  and  would  make  the 
insurance  void;  and  Captain  Jack, stepping  for- 
wards after  the  manner  of  "Ancient  Pistol," 
boldly  offered  to  give  me  a  thousand  dollars  in 
specie  for  every  grain  of  gunpowder  I  could  find 
on  board  of  her.  As  this  insolent,  yet  ridiculous 
proposition  was  a  figure  not  easily  matched  in 
the  great  art  of  browbeating,  I  determined  to 
join  issue  with  the  captain  here,  and  to  blow  him 
up,  in  the  hopes  of  saving  the  steamer.  I  there- 
fore coolly  told  him  that  he  was  an  ingenious 
fellow,  but  that  he  had  made  a  false  move  for 
once;  for  I  knew  that  the  gunpowder  had  been 
taken  on  board  by  his  directions,  that  it  was  now 
in  the  forecastle  not  far  from  the  furnace,  that  I 
had  seen  it  there  within  half  an  hour,  and  that  if 
he  and  the  passengers  would  go  forward  with  me 
I  would  show  it  to  them.  Captain  Jack  now 
was  checkmated,  and,  without  denying  the  fact, 


said,  "  Stranger,  I  niver  did  see  sicn  a  man  as 
you  are ;  I  swar  you  beat  all  creation  for  contra- 
riness. But,  gentlemen,  if  I  don't  go  at  nine  to  a 
minute,  I'll  give  you  leave  to  set  fire  to  the  bl — d 
gunpowder  and  blow  the  steamer  to  ****." 

Leaving  his  passengers  with  this  extraordina- 
ry alternative,  he  went  ashore  to  look  for  more 
freight  and  passengers;  and,  following  his  ex- 
ample, I  returned  to  Louisville  to  breakfast,  sent 
a  carriage  for  our  luggage,  and  the  rain  abating, 
and  the  Ohio  not  rising,  determined  to  be  satis- 
fied with  the  experience  I  had  acquired  in  rela- 
tion to  small  steamers  and  their  captains.  The 
lies  these  fellows  tell  are  like  custom-house 
oaths  with  many  persons,  told  in  the  way  of 
business  only.  Great  a  liar  as  Captain  Jack 
was,  he  was  said  to  be  an  obliging,  good  fellow. 
As  to  explosion  from  gunpowder,  or  destruction 
from  any  other  cause,  they  occur  with  so  much 
frequency  as  to  have  created  a  general  indiffer- 
ence to  accidents  of  this  kind.  An  explosion 
of  the  boiler  of  a  steamer  called  the  Banner  took 
place  about  this  time  on  the  Mississippi:  five 
persons  were  killed,  and  sixteen  frightfully  scald- 
ed. It  was  the  occasion  of  a  paragraph  in  the 
newspapers  headed  "  Melancholy  Disaster,"  but 
I  never  heard  it  alluded  to  afterwards.  Perhaps 
the  accidents  are  few  compared  with  the  great 
number  of  bad  steamers,  and  worse  engineers 
and  commanders,  on  the  Mississippi.  Any  fel- 
low with  the  slightest  knowledge  of  machin- 
ery sets  up  for  an  engineer;  no  certificate  is  re- 
quired of  his  ability,  and  if  he  will  serve  for  a 
low  price,  the  lives  of  the  parties  on  board  are 
at  once  entrusted  to  him.  The  steamers  go  by 
high  pressure  ;  and  when  the  engineer  and  cap- 
tain are  two-thirds  drunk — which  often  happens 
in  the  small  steamers — they  drive  the  steamer 
as  fast  as  she  will  go,  and  sometimes  load  the 
safety-valve  to  terrify  the  passengers.  All  these 
accidents  happen  from  rashness  o"r  carelessness. 
Those  who  go  in  the  small  steamers  are  gener- 
ally poor  people  emigrating  to  the  western  coun- 
try, speculators,  gamblers,  and  people  little 
known  ;  all  fatalists  to  a  certain  extent;  at  any 
rate,  believing  that  their  chance  is  as  good  as 
that  of  any  body  else;  and  when  they  have  made 
a  mistake,  it  is  a  matter  which  concerns  very 
few  people,  and  makes  little  or  no  impression 
upon  others,  for  human  life  is  not  esteemed 
as  precious  in  these  wild  countries  as  in  com- 
munities where  existence  is  cherished  and  pam- 
pered. As  mea  advance  in  civilisation,  every 
individual  is  a  link  in  society,  and  his  life  is 
valuable  to  the  rest,  who  know  how  to  feel  and 
compassionate  the  loss  of  one  of  their  number. 
Here  it  does  not  strike  any  one  as  being  partic- 
ularly surprising  that  such  people  should  per- 
ish ;  indeed,  if  the  world  thought  about  it  at  all, 
it  would  be  surprised  that  they  had  not  perished 
before.  Men,  too,  are  rapidly  reproduced  in  this 
country  of  easy  subsistence.  Property  is  risked 
in  the  same  manner,  because  it  is  easily  acqui- 
red again.  Food  and  clothing  are  obtained  by 
very  small  exertions,  the  active  men  of  these 
frontier  countries  not  having,  like  the  individu- 
als of  denser  communities,  any  apprehensions 
on  that  score.  They  know  they  have  an  unoc- 
cupied wilderness  before  them,  with  land  and 
game  to  fly  to:  and  as  to  the  wealth  which  many 
of  them  are  eager  to  obtain,  it  is  not  desired  for 
the  purpose  of  placing  the  happiness  of  them- 
selves or  their  families  upon  a  solid  foundation, 
but  is  a  prize  of  which,  when  drawn,  the  amount 
is  laid  out  in  lottery  tickets  again,  all  of  which 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


frequently  come  up  blanks.  Such  men  meet  re- 
verses in  a  quieter  way  than  others  do  who  be- 
long to  an  older  stage  of  society. 

An  intelligent  person  whom  I  saw  at  Louis- 
ville told  me  that  be  knew  a  man  who  had  em- 
barked all  he  had  in  the  world  on  a  flat-bottomed 
boat,  and  then  undertook  to  conduct  the  boat, 
with  the  aid  of  three  or  four  men,  over  the  falls 
of  the  Ohio  without  a  pilot.  He  could  have  pro- 
vided a  sufficient  pilot  for  six  dollars,  but  he  re- 
fused to  have  one  ;  and  pushing  his  boat  boldly 
into  the  rapids,  it  soon  got  beyond  his  control, 
was  knocked  and  stove  to  pieces,  every  thing 
was  lost,  and  his  men  and  himself  saved  with 
difficulty.  When  the  people  who  ran  to  tne 
shore  to  assist  him  came  up  with  him,  they  found 
him  looking  at  the  fragments  of  his  boat  which 
were  dashing  about  amongst  the  rapids.  All 
was  gone,  to  the  last  barrel  of  flour,  and  to  the 
last  nail  in  his  boat.  It  was  an  incident  to  have 
made  Momus  serious  for  the  time;  but  this  fel- 
low, turning  to  the  people,  said — 

"  Hail  Columbia,  happy  land  ! 
If  I  ain't  ruined,  I'll  he " 

The  same  gentleman  assured  me  that  he  was 
once  a  witness  to  a  similar  scene,  when  the  vio- 
lence of  the  rapids  overpowered  the  persons  con- 
ducting another  flat  boat,  tossed  it  about  in  a 
frightful  manner,  and  finally  driving  it  into  a 
chute  of  great  power,  the  boat  was  literally  turn- 
ed a  somerset  by  the  eddy.  Everything  was 
lost,  and  the  owner  was  extricated  from  the  rap- 
ids with  difficulty.  On  reaching  the  shore,  and 
seeing  the  disjecta  membra  going  down  stream, 
the  first  thing  he  said  was,  "  She's  gone  to  be 

any  how;  but  she  made  a  most  almighty 

rear  of  it,  didn't  she!"  This  is  the  usual  way 
in  which  they  use  their  expletives,  conceiving  it 
gives  energy  to  what  they  have  to  say. 

But  this  kind  of  brutality,  which  makes  the 
conversation  of  the  lower  classes  near  the  Mis- 
sissippi so  disgusting,  is  not  always  a  proof  of 
badness  of  heart,  for  I  have  seen  many  of  them 
very  obligingly  disposed  to  be  useful  to  others. 
The  half-horse,  half-alligator  race,  that  was 
brought  up  from  infancy  in  the  arks  and  flat-bot- 
tomed boats  that  navigated  these  western  rivers 
before  steamers  were  introduced,  are  off"  the 
stage  now;  but  the  language  of  the  people  is 
still  sufficiently  figurative,  and  sometimes  unin- 
telligible. Any  magnificent  steamer,  built  upon 
a  larger  plan  than  usual,  is  called  "A  sin  to 
Crockett;"  an  expression  of  which  I  received  a 
very  roundabout  explanation.  A  well-known 
Tennessean  named  Crockett,  remarkable  for 
marvellous  feats  and  marvellous  stories,  is  sup- 
posed to  be  so  "beat"  by  this  monster,  "larger 
than  the  largest  size,"  that,  instead  of  regarding 
it  as  a  virtue,  he  regards  it  as  a  sin,  and,  ergo,  it 
is  "  A  sin  to  Crockett." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Leave  Louisville,  and  take  to  the  Stage-Coach  again — Dif- 
ference betwixt  the  Manners  of  Slave  and  Free  States— 
Vincennes  in  the  State  of  Illinois— Old  Race  of  French 
Canadians  there  —  Beauty  of  the  Prairies  —  Horizontal 
Coal  Seams  in  the  banks  of  the  rive;s— Grouse — Ancient 
bed  of  the  Mississippi  seven  miles  broad  -The  Town  of 
St  Louis  in  the  State  of  Missouri — Col.  Smith  of  the 
British  Array — "  Running  a  Negro"  explained— Jefferson 
Barracks,  admirable  management  of  a  reg-imental  fund  — 
Vuide  Poche  and  Pain  Court— A  group  of  thirty  Barrows. 
WE  left  Louisville,  Oct.  13,  in  the  stage-coach, 
intending  to  pass  through  the  States  of  Indiana 
and  Illinois,  on  our  way  to  St.  Louis,  and  cross- 


ed the  Ohio  soon  after  daylight  to  New  Albany, 
a  thriving  village  on  the  Indiana  shore,  five 
miles  from  the  Falls.  The  country  hence  rises 
rapidly  several  hundred  feet,  and  leaves  the  val- 
ley of  the  Ohio  for  elevated  barrens,  with  lime- 
stone knobs,  as  far  as  Greenville,  where  there  is- 
a  pretty  level  country,  resembling  the  barrens  of 
Kentucky,  and  geologically  the  same,  the  valley 
of  the  Ohio  merely  intervening.  From  Louis- 
ville to  Paoli,  fifty-one  miles,  is  a  succession  of 
knobs  and  levels.  We  crossed  the  Blue  River 
at  a  desolate  place  called  Fredericsbnrgh,  where 
there  is  a  compact  lead-coloured  limestone  con- 
taining producta.  The  road  was  tolerably  goodr 
the  land  frequently  of  the  very  first  quality,  and 
the  people  very  civil  and  obliging.  The  change 
from  a  state  where  slavery  exists,  which  it  does 
in  Kentucky,  though  in  somewhat  a  mitigated 
form,  to  a  State  with  a  free  population,  is  obvi- 
ous here.  In  Indiana  you  see  neat  white  wom- 
en and  their  children,  with  here  and  there  a  free 
negro ;  and  every  thing  is  cleaner  and  tidier 
than  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky.  The  mis- 
tress of  the  house  and  her  daughters  wait  upon 
you  at  table,  instead  of  the  huge,  fat,  frowsy  ne- 
gresses  that,  in  the  slave  States,  poison  you  with 
the  effluvium  from  their  skins,  when  they  reach 
over  to  set  any  thing  on  the  table.  Paoli  is  a 
poor  sort  of  a  place,  built  on  a  broad  ledge  of 
limestone;  but  the  situation  is  beautiful.  They 
have  a  novaculite,  or  whetstone,  here,  which  ap- 
pears to  be  of  an  excellent  quality,  and  is  pro- 
cured at  the  French  Lick  Hills,  about  ten  miles 
off.  From  hence  the  country  is  over  a  rough 
limestone  road  to  the  east  fork  of  White  Rivert 
where  the  land  drops  down  to  a  perfect  level  bot- 
tom, consisting  of  a  deep  fertile  alluvial  soil,  a. 
great  part  of  which  is  annually  under  water. 

This  is  the  eastern  edge  of  'the  great  basin  of 
the  Mississippi;  and  along  this  swampy  bottom, 
loaded  with  timber,  we  continued  to  White  Riv- 
er, which  we  crossed  in  the  ferry-boat,  and  where 
I  obtained  some  unios.  From  hence  we  travel- 
led fifteen  miles  to 'Vincennes,  on  a  dead  but 
well-wooded  flat;  and  on  approaching  the  towa 
came  to  a  prairie  country.  The  change  was  a 
pleasing  one:  a  ridge  of  sandstone  hills  skirted 
the  plains,  and  we  could  perceive  a  chain  of 
lofty  mounds  upon  them,  thrown  up  by  the  In- 
dians in  ancient  times,  which  strongly  remind- 
ed me  of  the  tumuli  and  beacons  on  the  wolds 
of  Yorkshire.  These  mounds  seem  to  have  serv- 
ed the  double  purpose  of  sepulchres  and  of  look- 
outs, as  they  command  both  the  hills  and  plains. 
Vincennes  is  an  old  French  settlement,  huilt  upon- 
the  Wabash  River,  a  fine,  slow,  pellucid  stream, 
which  rolls  over  a  sandstone  covering  strong  beds 
of  coal,  that  are  frequently  exposed  to  view  in  the 
banks.  This  place,  when  ^e  French  possessed 
it,  was  called  Poste  St.  Vincent,  a  name  which 
the  Americans  have  corrupted  into  Vincennes. 
The  French  familiarly  called  it  Au  Poste;  and 
the  quarter  of  the  town  inhabited  at  present  by 
that  race  is  separated  from  that  inhabited  by  the 
Americans,  whose  village  stores,  bad  taverns, 
and  brick  houses,  form  a  singular  contrast  with 
the  humble  cabins  of  the  descendants  of  the  an- 
cient French  Canadians,  who  seem  to  mix  very 
little  with  their  intruding  neighbours. 

After  the  conquest  of  Canada  and  the  peace  of 
1763,  Colonel  Croghan  was  sent  by  the  British 
government  to  explore  the  country  adjncent  to 
the  Ohio  River,  and  to.  conciliate  the  Indian  na- 
tions who  had  hitherto  acted  with  the  French. 
He  left  Pittsburg  with  some  Indian  chiefs,  and 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


63 


'white  men,  in  two  bateaux,  on  the  15th  |  French  Canadians  to  abbreviate  all  their  names. 


of'Ma'y,  1765;  and  on  the  8th  of  June,  when  bi 
vouacking  a  few  miles  below  the  mouth  of  th 
AVabash,  was  attacked  by  a  party  of  eight} 
K-ickapoos  and  Musquattimay  Indians,  who  kill 
ed  five  of  his  party,  wounded  himselt  and  all  the 
others  except  three,  took  them  prisoners,  an 
plundered  them.  The  Indians  by  forced  march 
es  conducted  them  to  this  place,  where  there  were 
then  about  ninety  French  Canadian  families 
described  by  Colonel  Croghan  as  an  idle,  lazy 
people,  worse  than  the  Indians.  No  doubt  was 
entertained  that  these  people  had  instigated  th« 
Indians  to  commit  this  outrage  in  time  of  peace 
for  they  shared  the  plunder  with  the  savages,  anc 
refused  to  lend  any  assistance  to  the  unfortunate 
party  of  Colonel  Croghan.  I  called  at  the  hu 
of  several  of  the  Canadians,  and  as  soon  as  1 
began  to  speak  French  was  very  politely  receiv- 
ed, one  family  offering  me  coffee.  They  seem- 
ed to  have  no  desire  to  keep  up  any  intercourse 
with  the  American  settlers;  and  one  woman  told 
me  that  they  were  "si  betes  ils  ne  savoient  pas 
faire  le  cafe."  It  was  at  her  cabin  1  found  an 
elderly  man,  who  told  me  that  his  father  was  here 
when  Colonel  Croghan  was  brought  in  a  pris 
oner.  I  was  much  interested  with  the  place  and 
with  these  simple  people,  who  seem  broken- 
hearted by  the  presence  of  the  intruders  that  have 
destroyed  both  their  gaiety  and  their  importance. 
The  difference  betwixt  the  two  races  is,  that  the 
Canadian,  not  loving  work,  is  always  ready  for 

n,  whilst  the  American  is  so  industrious  that 
as  no  time  to  play.  After  visiting  several 
of  them,  I  went  to  a  tavern  in  the  American  part 
of  the  town,  kept  by  one  Clarke;  but  this  man, 
by  his  rude  manner  and  his  extortions,  made  us 
glad  to  get  away  from  the  place,  so  easy  is  it  for 
any  disagreeable  person  to  turn  the  whole  cur- 
rent of  that  kind  feeling  one  is  so  happy  to  enter- 
tain. 

Words  cannot  do  justice  to  the  beauty  of  the 
prairie  we  entered  upon  on  crossing  the  Wa- 
bash into  the  State  of  Illinois:  it  was  a  sort  of 
ocean  of  land,  a  few  trees  only  being  visible  in 
some  points  of  the  horizon,  as  palms  are  seen  in 
the  distance  on  the  desert  plains  of  Egypt.  We 
had  now  a  fine  smooth  road  over  an  uniform 
level,  were  moving  through  an  interesting  Indian 
country  on  a  bright  sunny  day,  and  were  in  high 
spirits.  On  crossing  the  Embarras,  a  stream 
which  intersects  the  prairie  and  flows  into  the 
Wabash,  I  saw  a  superb  bed  of  bituminous  coal 
in  the  bank,  on  ^a  horizontal  level,  the  extreme 
depth  of  which  was  not  visible.  The  whole  ot 
the  oolitic  series  of  beds  being-  wanting  in  the 
United  States,  the  coal-fields  of  this  country  are 
generally  found  on  the  surface,  a  circumstance 
which  will  give  the  greatest  facility  for  mining 
when  coal  comes  into  general  use,  which  it  must 
do  when  fire-wood  becomes  scarce  and  dear.  In 
many  places  the  coal  will  only  require  the  sim- 
ple operation  of  quarrying,  as  now  practised  in 
the  anthracite  beds  of  the  Allegheny  Mountains, 
•which  have  been  upheaved  under  circumstances 
almost  justifying  the  opinion,  that  the  coals  in 
the  western  country,  those  in  the  mountains,  and 
those  on  the  Atlantic,  were  contemporaneous  in 
their  origin,  and  were  at  one  time  united  in  one 
field. 

It  is  amusing  to  observe  how  the  American 
settlers  are  doing  their  very  best  to  corrupt  all 
the  French  names  of  places :  amongst  the  rest, 
they  have  poetically  converted  the  Embarras 
into  the  Ambrosia.  It  was  the  custom  of  the 


If  they  were  going  *n  the  Arkansan  Mountains, 
they  would  say  they  were  going  "Aux  Arcs;" 
and  thus  these  highlands  have  got  the  modem 
name  of  "Ozarks"  from  American  travellers. 
"Aux  Kaskaskias"  the  Canadians  abbreviated 
into  "  Aux  Kau ;"  and  in  passing  through  Illinois 
now  you  hear  of  the  Okau  River— a  name,  in- 
deed, which  has  got  into  the  maps.  The  whole 
country  from  Vincennes  to  the  Mississippi  is  a 
dead  flat,  resembling  some  of  the  moors  and 
wolds  of  England,  occasionally  interrupted  with 
belts  of  trees,  and  swamps  wi'th  swamp  timber 
growing  in  them.  These  belts  of  trees  at  partic- 
ular 'distances  seem  to  subdivide  the  general 
prairie;  and  you  hear  of  the  Six-mile  Prairie, 
the  Twelve-mile  Prairie,  and  one  near  a  small 
settlement  called  Carlisle  is  called  the  Twenty- 
mile  Prairie.  In  other  parts  of  the  country  you 
see  no  termination  to  the  prairie  on  the  horizon. 
Frequently  the  grouse  (Tetrao  cupido)  start  up- 
almost  under  your  feet,  fine  strong  birds,  but  too- 
heavy  to  fly  far:  of  these  a  good  sportsman  could 
kill  more  than  he  could  carry  in  a  couple  of 
hours.  Deer  also  frequent  these  plains.  I  saw- 
none  myself;  but  a  passenger  on  the  top  of  the 
stage-coach  saw  several  whilst  I  was  looking  at 
some  land-shells. 

After  going  over  140  miles  of  this  kind  of 
ountry  we  sa  Idenly  came  to  the  edge  of  this 
orairie  land,  which  was  a  sort  of  continuous 
3lufF  containing  flat  horizontal  seams  of  coal, 
and  descended  from  it  to  a  lower  level  of  rich 
black  alluvial  soil.  We  saw  at  once  that  we 
were  now  upon  the  ancient  bottom  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River,  and  that  we  were  approaching 
he  great  stream  which  drains  the  immense  dis- 
rict  of  upper  country.  Across  this  ancient  bot- 
:om*  of  that  once  mighty  stream  we  bad  now 
only  six  miles  to  travel  before  we  should  reach 
he  present  channel  of  the  Mississippi,  and  push- 
ng  on  after  a  tedious  swampy  drive  at  length 
got  a  glimpse  of  the  river,  which  is  here  not 
quite  a  mile  wide,  ;  nd  soon  after  reached  the 
steam-boat  ferry.  Although  the  weather  had 
been  sultry  all  day,  with  scarce  a  breath  of  air 
tirring,  we  found  a  breeze  approaching  to  a  gale 
on  the  Mississippi,  and  in  crossing  found  the 
water  rather  ro'igh.  Opposite  to  us  was  the  city 
>f  St.  Louis,  with  its  churches  and  their  steeples, 
he  broad  quays  coming  down  to  the  water  at  a 
great  inclination,  the  massive  warehouses  in 
rontof  them,  and  a  prodigious  number  of  steam- 
;rs  alongside  the  quay.  Rejoicing  that  we  had 
got  to  the  extreme  terminus  of  stage-coaching- 
n  safety,  we  now  crossed  this  noble  river,  ex- 
:eedingly  gra'ified  with  the  magnificent  sight 
>efore  us;  ind'ed.the  spectacle  wanted  but  little 
lid  from  the  i  nagination  to  make  it  one  of  the 
most  pleasing  we  had  ever  met  with. 

On  reaching  the  main  street  my  fancy  filled 
with  the  history  of  the  peregrinations  and  adven- 
ures  of  Father  Hennepin,  La  Sale,  and  other 
arly  travellers  in  these  regions;  and  anxious  to> 
ee  the  descendants  of  the  enterprising  Canadians 
cho  first  discovered  and  settled  these  shores  of 
be  Mississippi,  f  was  grievously  afflicted  at  the 
ommon-place  appearance  of  the  shops,  and  the 
cant  of  French  names  over  them.  To  have 
ollowed  the  enterprising  Pere  Hennepin  so  far 
erely  to  find  a  street  full  of  Reuben  Doolittles 


*  The  country  p< 
le  of  the  river  the 
fore  the  annexatl 
tales. 


pie  call  this  alluvial  strip  on  the  east 
American  bottom,  from  its  having-  been, 
i  of  Louisiana,  the  limit  of  the  United 


G4 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


and  Jeremiah  Cushings  painted  over  the  doors 
gave  me  a  sensible  chill;  but  the  moment  the 
avaricious  looks  of  the  numerous  Yankee  store- 
keepers, and  their  stores  well  filled  with  Euro- 
pean goods  from  the  Atlantic  States,  met  my 
eyes,  all  the  romance  of  Canadian  cottages,  old 
French  physiognomies,  and  crowds  of  Indian 
walking  about,  that  had  been  flourishing  in  my 
imagination,  was  completely  dispelled.  I  saw 
at  once  that  the  everlasting  Jonathan  had  struck 
his  roots  deep  into  the  ground,  and  that  the  La 
Sales  had  given  way  toDoolittle  &  Co.  If  any- 
thing was  wanting  to  bring  me  to  the  complete 
practical  state  of  mind  I  was  approaching,  no- 
thing could  have  been  more  serviceable  than  the 
tavern  I  was  directed  to,  which  was  in  every 
sense  inferior  to  that  at  Louisville. 

On  arriving  there  I  entered  the  bar-room, 
which  was  filled  with  vagabond  idle-looking  fel- 
lows, drinking,  smoking,  and  swearing  in  Amer- 
ican: everything  looked  as  if  we  had  reached 
the  terminus  of  civilisation  ;  it  seemed  to  be  next 
door  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  only  one  stage 
from  where  we  should  find  Nature  in  a  perfect 
undress,  and  in  the  habit  of  eating  her  dinner 
without  a  knife  and  fork.  I  had  scarcely  ascer- 
tained of  the  landlord  that  we  could  have  separ- 
ate bed-rooms  when  an  exceedingly  fine  gentle- 
man, superbly  dressed,  his  jowls  covered  with 
hair,  and  a  gold  watch-guard  magnificently 
streaming  across  his  chest,  came  out  from  the 
knot  of  smoking  fashionables  in  the  bar-room, 
and  with  his  face  beaming  with  satisfaction,  ex- 
tended his  right  hand  most  lovingly  to  me.  It 
was  "  Colonel  Smith,  of  the  British  army"  who 
had  formerly  served  at  Waterloo,  and  whom  I 
had  seen  at  the  White  Sulphur  Springs  in  Vir- 
ginia. Since  1  had  lost  sight  of  this  gallant  of- 
ficer I  had  received  some  interesting  information 
respecting  him.  which  left  little  doubt  what  regi- 
ment he  had  served  in,  a  fact  that  seemed  to  have 
escaped  the  Colonel's  recollection  at  the  White 
Sulphur.  I  had  met  with  a  Kentuckian  at  Louis- 
ville whom  I  had  also  seen  at  those  springs,  and 
he  informed  me  that  a  few  days  after  I  went 
away  a  disclosure  had  been  made  which  seemed 
to  have  had  an  unfavourable  effect  upon  the 
Colonel's  health,  for  he  had  suddenly  departed  to 
try  the  waters*  at  the  Red  Sulphur. 

It  seems  that  amongst  other  modes  of  getting 
a  livelihood  in  the  Southern  States,  that  of  "  run- 
ning negroes"  is  practised  by  a  class  of  fellows 
who  are  united  in  a  fraternity  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  on  the  business,  and  for  protecting  each 
other  in  time  of  danger.  If  one  of  them  falls 
under  the  notice  of  the  law  and  is  committed  to 
take  his  trial,  some  of  the  fraternity  benevolent- 
ly contrive,  "somehow  or  other,"  to  get  upon  the 
jury,  or  kindly  become  his  bail.  To  "run  a 
negro"  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  good  understand- 
ing with  an  intelligent  male  slave  on  some  plan- 
tation, and  if  he  is  a  mechanic  he  is  always  the 
more  valuable.  At  the  time  agreed  upon  the 
slave  runs  away  from  his  master's  premises  and 
joins  the  man  who  has  instigated  him  to  do  it; 
they  then  proceed  to  some  quarter  where  they  are 
not  known,  and  the  negro  is  sold  for  seven  or 
eight  hundred  dollars,  or  more,  to  a  new  master. 
A  few  days  after  the  money  has  been  paid,  he 
runs  away  again,  and  is  sold  a  second  time,  and 
as  oft  as  the  trick  can  be  played  with  any  hope 


*  This  is  a  slang  expression.  These  swells  generally  re- 
main in  New  Orleans  during  the  winter,  and  "  try  the  wa- 
ters" during  the  summer,  that  is,  they  go  to  the  watering 
places. 


of  safety.  The  negro  who  does  the  harlequinade 
part  of  the  manosuvre  has  an  agreement  with  his 
friend,  in  virtue  of  which  he  supposes  he  is  to 
receive  part  of  the  money;  but  the  poor  devil  in 
the  end  is  sure  to  be  cheated,  and  when  he  be- 
comes dangerous  to  the  fraternity  is,  as  I  have 
been  well  assured,  first  cajoled  and  put  off  his 
guard,  and  then,  on  crossing  some  river  or  reach- 
ing a  secret  place,  shot  before  he  suspects  their 
intention,  or  otherwise  made  away  with. 

A  small  planter  who  happened  to  be  at  the 
White  Sulphur  this  season,  and  who  had  the 
year  before  purchased  a  valuable  slave  that  had 
escaped  a  few  days  afterwards,  advertised  him 
very  minutely  in  the  newspapers;  and  it  happen- 
ed very  oddly  that  another  planter  had  at  the 
same  time  advertised  a  slave  with  the  same  de- 
scription, but  with  a  different  name.  This  led 
to  an  interview  betwixt  the  two  planters,  and 
upon  comparing  notes  they  found  they  had  each 
been  defrauded  by  the  same  identical  white  man 
and  his  pretended  slave.  All  their  efforts,  how- 
ever, to  discover  this  person  had  hitherto  been  in 
vain,  when  one  evening  the  planter  who  was  at 
the  White  Sulphur  going  with  a  friend  to  the 
gambling-house,  suddenly  asked  a  person  there 
who  that  man  was  with  the  gold  chain  on  his 
breast;  he  was  told  it  was  "Colonel  Smith,  of  the 
British  army,  who  had  served  at  Waterloo." 
Now  the  pla'nter,  although  he  had  not  served  at 
Waterloo,  thought  he  had  a  pretty  distinct  rec- 
ollection of  the  Colonel's  having  sold  him  the 
"runaway  negur,"  and  kept  his  eye  constantly 
fixed  upon  him,  a  circumstance  which  sooner  or 
later  could  not  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
Colonel,  whose  eyes  were  in  the  habit  of  keep- 
ing a  pretty  sharp  look-out;  and  not  liking  to  be 
stared  at,  he  walked  out  and  was  followed  by 
the  planter  and  his  friend.  The  night  was  dark, 
the  Colonel  had  friends  on  the  spot,  who,  like 
himself,  were  always  prepared  to  "  hop  the  twig," 
and  in  half  an  hour  was  seated  in  a  gig  and 
wending  his  way  through  the  woods  to  Lewis- 
burgh.  In  the  morning  the  story  was  abroad, 
the  Colonel  was  said  to  be  gone  to  the  Red 
Sulphur,  and  thither  the  planter  followed  him, 
swearing  he  never  would  return  home  until  he 
caught  him. 

"  How  de  do  7"  said  the  Colonel— in  a  drawl 
[hat  was  quite  affettuoso, — extending  his  hand 

:o  me ;  "  I'm  happy  to  see  you,  if  I  ain't  I'm ." 

[  showed  the  Colonel  how  I  did  without  a  mo- 
ment's delay  by  instantly  turning  my  back  upon 
bim  and  asking  the  landlord  to  step  into  the  pass- 
age with  me,  where,  in  a  very  few  minutes,  I 
old  him  all  I  knew,  all  1  had  heard,  and  all  I 
nought  of  the  Colonel.  The  landlord  was  a 
prudent  man  :  he  saw  it  would  be  of  no  advan- 
age  to  him  to  keep  such  a  fellow  in  his  house, 
and  when  he  went  back  to  the  bar-room,  merely 
said  that  the  gentleman  had  told  him  that  two 
Virginia  planters  were  coming  on  in  the  stage- 
coach after  a  man  who  had  "  run  a  negui*  upon 
hem.  Half  an  hour  afterwards  the  Colonel 
ransferred  himself  to  a  steamer  that  he  reached 
just  as  she  was  casting  off  from  the  wharf  on  her 
way  to  New  Orleans. 

St.  Louis  is  admirably  situated  on  the  right 
sank  of  the  Mississippi,  which  is  at  least  one 
lundred  feet  higher  than  the  shore  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  so  that  the  present  channel  is  on  the 
western  edge  of  the  ancient  bed.  The  town  is 
juilt  on  beds  of  horizontal  limestone  correspond- 
ing with  those  of  the  opposite  bluffs  of  Illinois, 
about  seven  miles  to  the  east,  which  distance 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


65 


may  be  assumed  as  the  breadth  of  the  ancient 
stream.  From  the  edge  of  the  plateau  the  ground 
slopes  at  an  angle  of  45°  to  the  river,  and  the 
town  is  principally  built  on  this  slope.  The 
street  fronting  the  river  where  the  lofty  ware- 
houses are  is  called  Water  Street,  and  the  steam- 
ers and  other  craft  lie  at  the  loot  of  the  quay, 
which  is  very  steep  at  low  water.  The  next 
street  running  parallel  to  this,  and  where  the 
shops  are,  is  called  Main  Street.  The  others 
lead  to  the  country  and  intersect  these  at  right 
angles;  and  although  the  houses  and  shops  are 
small  and  rather  shabby,  yet  the  place  is  the  seat 
of  a  very  active  trade,  comprehending  the  Amer- 
ican fur-trade  of  the  far  western  country.  But 
the  suburbs  of  the  town  contain  a  great  many 
neatly-built  and  pleasant-looking  residences,  the 
most  conspicuous  amongst  which  is  that  of  Gen- 
eral Ashley,  the  celebrated  fur-trader  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  His  residence  is  a  very  in- 
teresting one,  the  foundation  being  laid  upon  one 
of  those  ancient  Indian  mounds  which  are  so  nu- 
merous in  this  country,  and  of  wh'ich  there  is  "a 
cluster  around  him. 

The  population  of  the  place  is  oddly  mixed  up. 
When  Louisiana  belonged  to  Spain  many  Span- 
ish families  settled  here;  to  these  the  French  suc- 
ceeded ;  now  the  Americans  have  taken  root  in 
the  place,  and  at  this  moment  it  is  half-filled 
with  German  emigrants.  The  Roman  Catholic 
religion,  as  yet,  preponderates;  but  this  will  not 
last  long,  for  the  Presbyterians  are  running  up 
their  Ebenezers  very  rapidly.  Amidst  this  mot- 
ley population — a  part  of  which  on  Sunday  even- 
ings is  singing  and  praying  at  the  meeting-hou- 
ses, a  part  dancing,  a  part  playing  the  guitar,  and 
the  German  part  swizzling  new-brewed  beer, — 
some  very  respectable  and  excellent  people  are 
to  be  found,  full  of  intelligence  and  kindness. 
General  Clarke,  the  enterprising  companion  of 
Lewis  in  the  well-known  journey  of  discovery 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  is  a  most  agreeable 
old  gentleman,  who  lives  in  a  very  pleasant  man- 
ner,  and  has  got  an  interesting  cabinet  of  natural 
curiosities  which  he  has  picked  up  in  his  various 
travels.  The  French  families  of  Pratte,  Chou- 
teau,  and  others  are  actively  engaged  in  the  com- 
merce of  the  country,  and  are  people  of  merit  and 
influence.  The  Chouteaus  conduct  the  affairs 
of  the  American  Fur  Company,  and  their  ware- 
house contains  immense  quantities  of  furs  trans- 
mitted from  the  far  west,  of  which  I  saw  and  pur- 
chased some  interesting  specimens. 

The  young  people  of  the  old  French  families 
still  continue  their  reunions  on  a  Sunday  even 
ing  after  the  custom  of  their  lively  ancestors,  arid 
have  music  and  a  family  dance;  but  I  was  in- 
formed by  some  French  ladies  that  they  had 
been  cautioned  lately  to  discontinue  them,  as  this 
practice  gave  offence  to  the  Presbyterian  con- 
gregation, and  it  was  not  unlikely  some  mob- 
bing would  take  place.  The  Christian  example 
of  the  Presbyterian  people  of  Charlestown,  in  the 
State  of  Massachusetts,  who  lately  burnt  a  Ro- 
man Catholic  female  seminary  and  valiantly 
drove  the  female  instructresses  into  the  streets  at 
midnight,  will,  no  doubt,  produce  a  salutary  ef- 
fect upon  many  Roman  Catholic  persons  here 
and  dispose  them  to  be  serious  on  a  Sunday  even- 
ing. 

During  my  stay  here  I  drove  out  to  Jefferson 
Barracks,  ten  miles  from  St.  Louis,  to  pay  my 
respects  to  General  Atkinson,  the  commanding- 
officer  of  the  district,  with  whom  I  had  formerly 
been  acquainted.  The  road  oassed  through  the 

T 


Drench  village  of  Carondelet,  which  is  beauti- 
lallysituated  on  the  limestone  beds,  and  com- 
nands  a  fine  view  down  the  Mississippi ;  it  is  a 
)oor,  poverty-stricken  place,  containing  some  in- 
jonveniem  wooden  houses,  whose  inhabitants  are 
)recisely  what  they  were  one  hundred  years  ago, 
lot  having  made  the  least  progress  in  the  useful 
rts.  They  still  use  a  small  badly  made  cart 
nth  a  meagre  horse,  or  "marche  done,"  as  ev- 
erybody calls  them  in  ridicule,  and  appear  not  to 
iave  one  earthly  comfort  in  their  houses.  In  old 
imes  this  place  and  the  village  of  St.  Louis 
were  rivals,  although  the  last  always  held  its 
head  a  little  above  the  other.  Whether  it  was 
hat  the  bakers  of  St.  Louis  sold  shorter  loaves 
han  usual,  or  would  not  give  credit  to  their 
neighbours  for  what  they  wanted  to  buy,  the  peo- 
ple of  Carondelet  nicknamed  the  place  "  Pain- 
3ourt."  In  return  the  people  of  St.  Louis  nick- 
named Carondelet  "  Vuide  Poche."  What  was 
a  joke  then  is  not  one  now,  for  the  two  places  are 
called  Pain  Court  and  Vide  Poche  by  the  lower 
classes  upon  all  occasions.  You  never  hear  of 
'  un  habitant  de  Carondelet,"  the  term  employed 
s  "un  Vuide  Pocheur."  So  true  is  this  that 
upon  one  occasion  when  1  was  collecting  some 
fossils  on  the  shore  at  this  place,  I  got  into  con- 
versation with  a  French  boy  about  twelve  years 
old,  and  asked  him  purposely  the  name  of  his 
village,  when  he  answered,  "  En  Anglais  on 
1'appelle  Carondelet,  mais  en  Fran<;ais  on  1'a'p- 
pelle  Vuide  Poche." 

Jefferson  Barracks  are  well  built  and  charm- 
ngly  situated  upon  a  bold  bluff  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Mississippi,  with  a  gentle  slope,  occasion- 
ally studded  with  trees,  going  down  to  the  river. 
The  6th  regiment  'of  U.  S.  infantry,  now  in  gar- 
rison here,  has  excellent  quarters,  and  the  officers 
and  their  families  find  this  a  pleasant  residence, 
being  in  a  salubrious  country  adorned  with  fine 
woodlands  and  abounding  in  game  at  no  great 
distance.  The  post  fund  of  this  regiment  appears 
to  be  well  managed ;  the  library  belonging  to  it 
contains  about  3000  volumes,  besides  numerous 
public  papers  and  periodicals ;  they  have  excel- 
lent schools  for  the  soldiers'  children,  and  other 
useful  and  benevolent  plans  for  the  general  ad- 
vantage of  the  regiment  are  supported  by  this 
fund,  which  depends  solely  upon  contributions 
made  within  it.  At  this  time  the  finances  are  in 
so  flourishing  a  state  that  I  was  told  they  had 
between  four  and  five  thousand  dollars  in  cash 
on  hand.  These  facts  do  great  honour  to  the 
gentlemen  who  so  ably  have  managed  the  fund, 
and  through  whose  care  such  precious  advan- 
tages are  secured  to  a  regiment  often  destined  to 
pass  many  years  on  the  distant  frontiers  far  re- 
moved from  all  society.  General  Atkinson's 
long  residence  in  the  western  country  has  made 
him  a  perfect  master  of  the  economy  necessary 
for  a  military  post  of  this  kind,  and  I  certainly 
have  never  seen  a  frontier  garrison  which  ex- 
celled Jefferson  Barracks  for  beauty  and  salu- 
brity of  situation,  neatness  of  parade-ground  and 
quarters,  and  all  general  arrangements  for  the 
personal  comfort  of  officers  and  men.  The  Gen- 
eral received  my  son  and  myself  in  the  most  cor- 
dial manner,  and  we  had  the  pleasure  of  par- 
taking of  an  excellent  dinner  at  his  quarters 
with  some  American  officers  who  had  just  re- 
turned from  a  residence  of  several  years  at  the 
more  distant  post  of  Fort  Leavenworth  on  the 
Missouri. 

The  succeeding  day  we  made  an  excursion 
on  foot  to  the  coal-field  in  the  bluffs  of  Illinois, 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


which  we  had  passed  over  in  our  way  to  St. 
Louis.  The  seam  which  at  present  supplies  St. 
Louis  with  coal  lies  horizontally  in  the  bluffs 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  north  of  the  public  road 
from  Vincennes,  and  as  they  are  about  eighty 
feet  in  height,  they  nearly  correspond  with  the 
plateau  on  which  St.  Louis  is  built.  The  coal 
lies  beneath  a  bed  of  light  grey  limestone,  from 
which  I  procured  some  fine  products  and  tere- 
bratula;  in  the  shale  which  formed  the  roof  of 
the  seam  I  could  find  no  fossil-plants,  but  abun- 
dance of  sulphuret  of  iron.  The  seam  measured 
eight  feet  thick  to  the  ground,  and  probably  went 
down  several  feet  farther,  so  that  it  was  not  pos- 
sible to  ascertain  whether  it  rested  upon  clay  or 
not.  To  obtain  the  best  quality  of  the  coal  they 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  make  drifts  into  the 
bluff  of  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  feet,  take  it 
out  in  large  blocks,  and  cart  it  over  a  wretched 
road  in  the  swamp  to  St.  Louis,  where  the  in- 
habitants pay  from  14  to  16  cents  the  bushel  for 
it.  The  carts,  drawn  by  oxen,  can  carry  in  dry 
weather — when  the  swamp  is  most  passable — 
1400  Ibs.  I  suggested  to  the  contractors  to  con- 
struct a  cheap  railroad  for  the  six  miles,  which 
would  not  cost  more  than  3500  dollars  a-mile, 
and  would  reduce  the  cost  of  transportation  at 
least  two-thirds.  The  excavation  of  the  coal  is 
carried  on  in  a  slovenly  manner;  the  roof  of  the 
seam  is  often  not  secured  at  all,  and,  of  course, 
is  continually  falling  down,  so  that  when  they 
have  run  their  drift  as  far  as  they  dare — and  I 
did  not  see  one  exceeding  a  hundred  feet  in 
length — they  abandon  it  and  go  to  another  place. 
Coal  is  also  found  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Mississippi,  about  four  or  five  miles  west  of  St. 
Louis;  and  as  we  had  seen  seams  of  the  same 
kind  near  the  surface  a  little  west  of  Vincennes, 
and  were  continually  observing  them  in  our 
progress  through  the  State  of  Illinois  to  these 
bluffs,  besides  being  told  that  they  are  found  for 
great  distances  north  and  south  in  the  ancient 
banks  of  the  Mississippi,  it  would  seem  that  all 
these  seams  are  but  sections  of  one  great  con- 
temporaneous deposit  underlying  all  this  part  of 
the  prairie  country,  and  which,  perhaps,  at  some 
ancient  period,  was  connected  with  the  coal- 
fields betwixt  it  and  the  Atlantic — a  conjecture 
that  would  appear  extravagant  to  one  who  had 
not  actually  crossed  them  all. 

Having  examined  the  coal-ground  we  directed 
our  steps  to  some  elevated  mounds  we  had  seen 
as  we  advanced  to  the  Mississippi,  and  having 
reached  them  after  a  good  smart  walk  across 
the  plain,  were  highly  gratified  with  their  ap- 
pearance. They  were  about  thirty  in  number, 
some  of  them  near  to  each  other  and  others  iso- 
lated. Some  were  conical,  some  oblong,  some 
flat  at  the  top,  and  the  larger  ones  usually  had  a 
small  tumulus  connected  with  them  by  way  of 
projection  from  the  side.  They  were  of  various 
sizes,  but  the  largest  of  them  was  so  very  striking 
an  object,  that  after  getting  up  to  the  top  of  a  few 
of  the  others,  and  remarking  that  there  was  a  de- 
pression in  the  surface  of  the  ground  near  to  each 
of  them,  from  whence  the  materials  of  which 
they  were  made  were  probably  excavated,  I  turn- 
ed my  attention  principally  to  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

A  remarkable  Barrow— The  Monuments  of  the  Ancient  Red 
People  analogous  to  those  of  the  Old  Races  in  Europe — 
Probable  cause  of  the  diversity  in  Indian  Dialects— A  pet- 


rified Forest— Society  at  St.  Louis— More  bolting-  at  the 
Table  d'Hdte— Fur-trappers  of  the  Rocky  Mountains — 
Excellent  Markets  at  St.  Louis— Money  the  .real  object  of 
Life. 

THIS  lofty  barrow  consists  of  an  oblong  tumu- 
lus stretching  north  and  souih,  the  summit  of 
which  is  115  feet  from  the  ground,  with  a  broad 
terrace  round  it,  at  not  quite  half  of  its  height 
from  the  base.  The  width  of  the  oblong  across 
at  the  north  end  is  about  160  feet,  and  its  length 
on  the  east  side  is  about  350  feet.  At  the  south- 
end  the  width  is  somewhat  abraded,  but  appears 
at  one  time  to  have  corresponded  to  that  at  the 
other  end.  From  the  centre  of  the  terrace  anoth- 
er oblong  of  50  feet  on  each  side  projects.  The 
east  side  of  the  terrace  is  200  feet  wide,  and  its 
front  both  to  the  east  and  west  measures  450 
feet.  In  the  rear,  at  the  north,  runs  the  Cahok ia 
Creek,  which  contains  some  good  fish,  as  I  was 
informed,  and  here  a  dense  woodland  commen- 
ces, in  which  are  various  other  mounds.  On 
the  west  side,  and  near  to  the  large  barrow — 
which  the  neighbouring  people  call  Monk's 
Mound — is  a  smaller  one,  where  some  monks  of 
La  Trappe  once  fixed  their  residence  when  they 
took  refuge  in  this  country;  but  the  dwelling  in. 
which  they  resided  is  now  levelled  with  the 
ground,  and  few  remains  of  it  are  still  visible.  I 
walked  over  the  area  where  these  melancholy 
beings  resided,  of  whom  some  curious  stories  are 
related.  A  benevolent  lady  of  St.  Louis  once 
visited  them  to  offer  her  services,  and  was  re- 
ceived in  profound  silence.  Finding  that  her 
offers  were  promptly  declined,  and  that  they 
were  not  disposed  to  hold  any  communication, 
with  her,  she  took  her  departure,  but  no  sooner 
had  she  left  the  door  than  one  of  them  took  a 
swab  and  a  pail  of  water,  and  immediately  began 
to  scrub  the  place  upon  which  she  had  been 
standing,  as  if  to  purify  it.  These  ascetics  cul- 
tivated a  part  of  the  large  mound,  and  raised 
their  vegetables  upon  it. 

At  this  time  it  is  in  the  possession  of  a  me- 
chanic named  Hill,  who  has  built  a  house  at  the 
top,  around  which  we  saw  abundance  of  Indian, 
corn,  pumpkins,  tomatoes,  &c. ;  for  the  soil  of 
which  the  mound  consists  is  the  rich  black  mould 
taken  from  the  surface  below,  which  is  extremely 
fertile.  Mr.  Hill  laid  the  foundation  of  his 
dwelling  upon  an  eminence  he  found  on  the 
summit  of  his  elevated  territory,  and  upon  dig- 
ging into  it,  found  large  human  bones,  with  In- 
dian pottery,  stone  axes,  and  tomahawks ;  from 
whence  it  would  appear  that  these  mounds  not 
only  contained  a  sepulchre  at  their  base,  but 
have  been  used  for  the  same  purpose  in  after- 
times  at  the  .summit.*  The  extraordinary  di- 
mensions, however,  of  this  mound,  seem  to  war- 
rant the  conjecture  that  they  served  various  pur- 
poses: for  when  the  adjacent  low  land  was  in- 
undated, many  families  could  reside  upon  it,  and 
its  great  elevation  made  it  an  excellent  look-out 
for  the  approach  of  an  enemy.  Mrs.  Hill  told 
me  that  even  the  top  of  the  mound  was  unhealthy 
in  the  autumnal  months,  and  that  she  was  then 
suffering  from  the  malaria  of  the  place.  We 
next  visited  another  oblong  mound,  with  an  em- 
inence or  small  tumulus  upon  it,  south  of  that 
upon  which  the  Trappists  dwelt;  and  if  I  had 
had  time,  and  had  been  prepared,  I  should  have 
opened  the  small  tumulus  in  the  expectation  of 
deterring  some  ancient  chief,  but  night  was  com- 


*  I  have  seen  mounds  of  this  kind— although  not  of  this 
Sj7.e_opened,  which  contained  vast  quantities  of  bodies 
Biled  in  layer*  upon  each  other. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


67 


ing  on,  we  had  at  least  six  miles  to  walk,  and 
ran  some  risk  of  not  reaching  the  Mississippi 
before  the  last  trip  of  the  steam  ferry-boat. 

In  the  course  of  this  day  we  saw  upwards  of 
sixty  mounds  large  and  small,  some  oblong,  some 
conical,  and  others  quadrangular,  like  those  upon 
the  plateau  upon  the  other  side  of  the  Mississip- 
pi. From  their  relative  position  to  each  other 
it  might  seem  as  if  they  were  intended  for  defence, 
and  yet  they  may  be  nothing  but  ancient  ceme- 
teries where  distinguished  chiefs  were  buried: 
again,  from  their  frequent  occurrence  on  these 
low  swampy  bottoms,  one  of  their  principal  uses 
may  have  been  as  dry  places  to  resort  to  during 
the  inundations  which  periodically  covered  those 
plains  with  the  swollen  floods  of  the  river;  and 
the  broad  terrace  attached  to  Monk's  Mound 
strengthens  this  view  of  the  subject,  since  it  ad- 
mitted of  being  inhabited  at  any  stage  of  the  wa- 
ter. It  is  plain,  however,  that  they  were  not  ex- 
clusively used  as  places  of  resort  in  times  of  in- 
undation, since  similar  ones  are  frequently  found 
upon  plateaux  of  land  far  above  the  rise  of  the 
Mississippi.  General  Ashley,  who  perhaps  pos- 
sesses more  practical  information  respecting  the 
Indians  than  any  other  individual,  assures  me 
that  he  has  found  them  in  every  possible  situa- 
tion in  the  remote  countries  adjacent  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains;  so  that  when  we  consider  that  one 
or  more  skeletons,  accompanied  with  pottery 
and  warlike  weapons,  have  been  found  in  all  the 
mounds  that  have  been  opened,  we  may  at  any 
rate  reasonably  conclude  that  these  structures 
were  intended,  in  their  origin,  as  sepulchres  for 
the  eminent  dead  of  the  aborigines,  and  were  to 
the  Indians  what  the  pyramids  were  to  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  and  the  barrow  to  the  races  that  in- 
habited England  in  times  of  yore. 

The  ingenuity  of  the  human  race,  before  met- 
als came  into  use,  seems  generally,  and  in  situ- 
ations the  most  remote  from  each  other,  to  have 
been  directed  to  the  same  contrivances ;  the  an- 
cient British  raised  the  barrow  over  the  chief- 
tain, and  placed  an  earthen  vase  slightly  orna- 
mented near  the  illustrious  dead  ;  the  red  Indian 
of  North  America  did  exactly  the  same  thing; 
and  not  only  are  all  the  specimens  of  pottery 
found  in  these  American  barrows,  which  I  have 
seen,  whether  in  Tennessee,  Missouri,  or  in  the 
museums,  made  of  sand  and  clay,  and  freshwa- 
ter shells  ground  up,  but  they  exactly  resemble 
each  other  in  their  ornaments  and  form,  and 
scarcely  at  all  differ  in  the  size  and  pattern.  I 
possess  many  specimens  of  ancient  British  and 
American  vases,  that  only  differ  from  each  oth- 
er in  the  ingredients  of  which  they  are  made. 
In  the  ancient  British  barrows  the  stone  coffin, 
too,  or  kistvaen,  is  composed  of  six  pieces  of 
stone,  just  as  the  stone  coffins  spoken  of  at  page 
48,  near  Sparta,  in  Tennessee. 

The  remarkable  diversity  of  dialects  which 
has  for  a  long  time  existed  between  the  Indian 
tribes  that  inhabit  North  America,  the  rooted 
antipathy  that  one  tribe  often  cherishes  to  an- 
other, and  some  striking  differences  which  are 
to  be  observed  in  their  customs,  are  facts  which 
have  led  to  the  inference  with  many  persons  that 
the  existing  races  have  had  a  various  origin; 
still  their  colour,  their  skulls  and  physiognomies, 
the  close  resemblance  in  their  modes  of  sepul- 
chre wherever  found,  the  forms  and  materials 
of  their  vases,  their  mounds,  their  stone  axes,* 


*  The  stone  axe  found  in  the  ancient  mounds,  with  a 
groove  around  it  in  the  place  of  an  eye  (which  is  sometimes 
found  in  the  British  barrows)  to  attach  a  handle  to,  with  a 


arrowheads,  and  the  purposes  to  which  they 
have  been  applied  in  all  times,  seem — independ- 
ent of  their  traditions — to  form  an  indestructi- 
ble link  betwixt  the  ancient  and  existing  races 
of  Indians,  and  to  prove  that- these  last  are  but 
generations  descended  from  the  first;  all  these 
natural,  artificial,  and  traditionary  evidences 
betraying  a  connexion  which  cannot  otherwise 
be  proved  in  the  case  of  a  savage  people  who 
have  never  had  any  permanent  records. 

As  to  the  difference  betwixt  the  dialects,  I 
imagine  it  appears  to  be  greater  than  it  is  :  few 
persons  have  studied  the  structure  of  the  Indian 
languages,  and  no  one  has  yet  successfully  en- 
tered upon  the  task  of  showing  how  human  be- 
ings in  a  state  of  nature,  with  no  motives,  and 
no  aid,  to  improve  their  oral  communications, 
must,  when  separated  into  groups  or  tribes  for 
purposes  of  subsistence,  necessarily  permit  the 
influences  of  climate,  food,  and  the  new  objects 
they  become  familiar  with,  to  effect  great  chang- 
es in  their  language.  If  the  Sclavonic,  Teuton.- 
ic,  Gallic,  British,  and  other  nations,  who  are — 
although  remotely — descended  from  a  common, 
stock,  no  longer  understand  each  other,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  red  Indians,  whom  civilisa- 
tion in  no  shape  has  ever  reached,  should  speak 
different  dialects.  Our  own  language  has  chang- 
ed in  the  last  four  hundred  years  strangely ; 
what  changes,  therefore,  may  not  have  taken 
place  during  two  thousand  years  perhaps,  or 
more,  that  the  red  Indians  have  inhabited  North, 
America,  and  who  never  have  possessed  the 
means  of  even  temporarily  fixing  one  of  their 
tongues'?  These  mounds  have  been  supposed 
by  some  writers  to  have  been  erected  by  a  race 
that  once  passed  through  the  country,  and  that 
had  no  blood  connexion  with  the  existing  peo- 
ple ;  but  the  evidence  they  furnish  of  a  similar- 
ity of  customs  and  manners  does  not  support  that 
opinion.  It  is  true  that  the  present  races  do  not 
appear — as  far  as  I  have  any  information — to 
continue  the  practice  of  constructing  them,  but 
this  may  be  occasioned  by  the  whites  having 
gradually  possessed  themselves  of  the  country, 
and,  indeed,  the  particular  race  that  were  in  the 
habit  of  constructing  such  mounds  may  have 
perished  amidst  the  conflicts  in  which  the  Indi- 
ans have  always  been  engaged  amongst  them- 
selves. 

At  General  Ashley's  I  saw  the  head  of  an  ani- 
mal, which,  but  for  the  appearance  of  a  tusk, 
was  apparently  of  the  genus  Cervus,  and  was 
entirely  converted  into  a  siliceous  fossil:  the  left 
jaw  had  been  broken  off  by  a  man  who  wanted 
to  see  if  the  brains  were  petrified.  It  was  found 
near  the  sources  of  the  Yellow  Stone  River,  a 
tributary  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which  rises 
on  the  east  flank  of  that  great  belt.  This  fossil 
was  not  found  imbedded  in  any  rocky  siratum' 
but  was  lying  loose  on  the  ground,  and  had  prob- 
ably become  silicified  by  the  same  process  that 
has  at  some  period  acted  upon  a  very  large  scale 
and  with  great  intensity  in  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try. General  Atkinson  and  other  intelligent  of- 
ficers, who  had  examined  a  singular  phenome- 
non there,  informed  me  that  upon  the  west  bank 
of  the  Missouri,  a  few  miles  below  its  junction 
with  the  Yellow  Stone,  the  remains  of  an  ancient 
forest  are  found,  at  an  elevation  of  about  300  feet 


thong  made  of  hide  or  the  sinews  of  some  animal  is  the 
same  weapon  used  in  our  own  times  by  the  Indians  of  the 
West.  I  saw  several  of  them  fitted  with  handles  attached 
hv  thongs,  which  General  Clarke  had  brought  from  the  for 


€8 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


above  the  river,  extending  twenty  or  thirty-  miles 
on  the  open  prairie,  every  tree  of  which  is  now 
a  perfect  siliceous  petrifaction ;  the  surface  of 
the  ground  being  literally  covered  with  broken 
trees,  stumps,  roois,  and  fractured  branches,  con- 
verted into  stone,  and  scattered  about  in  innu- 
merable fragments.  Some  of  the  trees  were  bro- 
ken off  close  to  the  root,  whilst  the  trunks  of 
others  were  standing  at  a  height  of  several  feet 
above  the  surface;  one  of  the  stumps  was  up- 
wards of  fifteen  feet  in  circumference.  Various 
specimens  of  these  silicified  plants  have  been 
shown  to  me,  and  the  phenomenon  must  be  ad- 
mitted to  be  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  facts 
in  the  history  of  mineralogy. 

The  fossil  which  was  found  in  this  petrified 
forest  exhibited  on  its  right  side  part  of  the  cra- 
nium of  the  animal,  of  which  the  whole  posterior 
part  was  wanting.  The  right  orbit,  with  a  cav- 
ity lying  obliquely  from  it,  was  tolerably  perfect, 
as  well  as  the  snout,  part  of  which  was  broken 
off.  The  teeth  of  the  upper  jaw  were  pretty  well 
preserved,  and  consisted  of  four  molars,  four  in- 
cisors, and,  in  a  line  almost  on  a  level  with  the 
•  lower  edge  of  the  orbit,  were  the  remains  of  a 
tusk.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  jaw  were  a 
corresponding  socket  and  tusk,  but  the  rest  of 
the  teeth  were  unfortunately  destroyed  by  the 
philosopher  that  wanted  to  see  if  the  animal's 
brains  were  petrified.  From  the  edge  of  the  pos- 
terior molar  to  the  tusk  a  curve  is  described. 
The  osseous  structure  is  otherwise  perfect ;  and 
the  whole  is  converted  into  siliceous  matter,  ex- 
cept some  calcareous  earth  in  the  cavities,  which 
somewhat  resembled  the  calcareous  fillings-in 
of  the  fossils  of  Montmartre,  near  Paris.  The 
owner  was  so  annoyed  by  the  very  unscientific 
treatment  which  the  head  had  received,  that  he 
was  loath  to  trust  it  to  me  to  make  a  drawing, 
and  so  I  contented  myself  with  a  .hasty  sketch 
of  it. 

The  venerable  discoverer,  General  Clarke, 
made  my  stay  at  St.  Louis  very  agreeable  to 
me :  whenever  I  had  any  leisure,  I  had  his  mu- 
seum and  his  pleasant  and  instructive  conversa- 
tion to  resort  to.  His  son-in-law,  Colonel  Kear- 
ney of  the  U.  S.  Dragoons,  and  his  lady,  were 
also  very  polite.  Mrs.  K.  is  a  lovely  woman, 
and  inherits  a  great  deal  of  the  spirit  of  enter- 
prise which  had  distinguished  her  father.  She 
accompanied  her  husband  by  land  all  the  way 
through  the  wilderness  from  Fort  Towson,  on 
Red  River,  to  St.  Louis,  and  left  this  last  place 
to  go  into  winter-quarters  with  him  at  the  De 
Moine,  much  higher  up  the  Mississippi.  From 
Dr.  William  Kerr  Lane,  too,  I  received  the  most 
useful  and  pleasing  attentions:  nor  ought  I  to 
forget  those  which  were  paid  to  me  by  some  of 
the  respectable  French  inhabitants.  On  leaving 
Sparta,  in  Tennessee,  my  amusing  friend  M. 
Nidelet,  putting  a  letter  in  my  hand,  addressed 
to  his  father-in-law,  General  Pratte,  at  St.  Louis, 
exacted  a  promise  from  me  that  I  would  deliver 
it  in  person.  1  did  so,  and  thus  became  accr&liti 
in  some  of  the  most  respectable  French  families 
•where  I  passed  many  agreeable  moments.  They 
soon  found  out  that  I  liked  their  society,  and  1 
became — what  under  other  circumstances  I  never 
could  have  been — the  confidant  of  many  of  their 
suppressed  national  feelings. 

At  the  tavern  where  I  lodged  all  was  dirt,  dis- 
order, and  want  of  system.  A  pack  of  ragged 
young  negroes  performed  the  service  of  cham- 
bermaids and  waiters,  and  did  it  about  as  wel 
as  a  pack  of  grown  monkeys,  caught  in  the  Bra 


zils,  would  do  in  three  months'  teaching.  The 
andlord,  who  to  me  was  always  very  obliging, 
seemed  to  have  no  sort  of  authority  either  over 
lis  servants  or  his  guests.  These  principally 
onsisted  of  those  impudent,  smoking,  spitting 
shopboys,  who  are  dignified  in  the  United  States 
with  the  appellation  of  "clerks."  I  only  occa- 
sionally dined  there;  but  it  was  always  the  same 
hing.  At  the  ringing  of  a  bell  these  "  clerks" 
•ushed  in  crowds  to  the  table,  just  as  a  pack  of 
lounds  or  a  drove  of  swine  would  to  their  feed. 
'.  found  it  most  prudent  to  wait  a  short  time,  for 
n  eight  minutes  they  had  gobbled  everything 
up,  and  had  again  rushed  out  to  take  a  glass  of 
swipes,  a  cigar,  and  go  to  their  "stores."  One 
>f  the  intolerable  evils  of  practical  equality  is, 
he  obliging  clean  people  to  herd  with  dirty  ones. 
The  landlord,  however,  seeing  my  way  of  doing 
hings,  used  generally  to  send  me  something  hot 
and  comfortable  to  eat  at  my  leisure.  But  an- 
other class  of  men  was  not  so  exceptionable : 
every  now  and  then,  extraordinary-looking, 
coarse-dressed,  weather-worn,  dried-up,  queer 
animals — travellers  like  myself — would  come  in, 
and  sitting  down  without  a  word  to  anybody, 
would  commence  the  most  astounding  voracious 
jerformances.  Fish,  pork,  beef,  sausages,  pud- 
lings,  all  on  the  same  plate  together  at  the  same 
ime,  and  bolted  down  with  the  most  stoic  indif- 
'erence  as  to  which  the  knife  and  fork  laid  hold 
of  first.  It  was  like  Potier's  song — 

u  Deux  canards  s'en  vont  promenant, 
Le  premier  va  au  devant." 

These  men  often  looked  like  very  indifferent 
company,  but  in  fact  were  much  more  estimable 
persons  than  most  of  those  at  the  table  who  were 
better  dressed.  The  American  swell  is  easily 
known,  for  he  is  always  a  preposterous  fine  gen- 
tleman, but  these  men  belonged  to  a  class  that 
possessed  a  great  deal  of  that  kind  of  information 
I  was  anxious  to  possess  myself  of.  Theij  were 
trappers  from  ike  Rocky  Mountains.  Some  of  them 
had  been  many  years  in  the  remote  countries  of 
the  west,  sometimes  trapping  beaver  on  their 
own  account,  at  other  times  acting  as  agents 
and  servants  to  others.  They  were  generally 
modest,  unpretending  men,  and  appeared  uncon- 
scious that  they  were  objects  of  the  liveliest  in- 
terest to  me.  I  formed  an  acquaintance  with 
several  of  them  who  had  frequently  traversed  the 
plains  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  par- 
ticularly with  two  who  had  wintered  with  the 
Spaniards  on  the  shores  of  California,  and  had 
resided  some  time  both  at  Monterey  and  the 
magnificent  Bay  of  S.  Francisco. 

The  adventures  of  some  of  these  trappers  were 
very  striking;  accustomed  to  penetrate  into  the 
most  secret  haunts  of  the  mountains  near  the 
sources  of  the  streams  that  flow  into  the  North 
Pacific,  they  would  set  their  beaver  traps  at 
night,  visit  them  early  in  the  morning,  and  skulk 
away  during  the  daytime  to  avoid  those  parties 
of  the  Blackfeet,  Crow,  and  Eutaw  Indians, 
which  were  scouring  the  country  to  punish 
these  intruders  into  their  native  hunting-grounds. 
Many  were  the  fights  they  had  had  with  them, 
with  the  loss  of  one  or  more  of  their  companions. 
One  of  these  men  had  a  broad  scar  on  his  fore- 
head, made  by  an  arrow  which  a  Blackfeet  In- 
dian, who  had  been  brought  down  by  a  rifle  and 
refused  to  receive  quarter,  fired  into  his  face 
from  the  ground.  The  point  fastened  itself  in 
his  skull,  and  was  extricated  with  difficulty. 

These  men,  from  their  own  account,  seldom 
save  anything  from  their  hard- won  earnings; 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


when  they  have  anything  beforehand  they  spend 
it  freely,  or  give  it  away,  and  when  the  annual 
supplies  come  from  St.  Louis,  they  are  charged 
such  immense  profits,  that  they  are  always  in 
debt  to  the  traders,  whose  policy  it  is  to  keep 
them  in  the  fur  country,  that  they  may  not  have 
the  trouble  and  expense  of  sending  more  out. 
The  consequence  is,  that  the  country  is  over- 
trapped,  and  the  destruction  of  animals  is  so 
great,  that  subsistence  will  ere  long  be  obtained 
with  difficulty.  This  state  of  things  is  already 
approaching:  the  American  Fur  Company  no 
longer  derives  the  great  profits  it  once  did,  and 
will  probably  be  dissolved  rather  than  expend 
their  capital  in  an  unproductive  trade.  When 
that  state  of  things  arrives,  many  of  the  trappers 
will  combine  and  establish  themselves  at  some 
point  or  points  in  the  territory  of  the  Columbia, 
probably  in  the  Valley  of  the  Wallamet,  a  trib- 
utary of  the  Columbia,  where  the  soil  is  some- 
what fertile,  the  situation  health}',  and  where  a 
greater  amenity  of  climate  prevails.  All  these 
irien  concur  in  speaking  with  great  admiration 
of  the  softness  01  the  winter  climate  in  some  of 
the  valleys  of  the  Columbia  territory,  and  the 
very  early  state  of  the  spring  there,  which,  no 
doubt,  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  western  breezes 
bringing  to  that  coast  the  mild  temperature  of 
the  ocean  which  they  traverse. 

Of  the  British  or  Hudson's  Bay  Fur  Company 
these  men  always  spoke  with  respect ;  they  said 
it  was  a  good  thing  to  be  in  their  employment, 
because  it  was  steady  and  constant,  and  did 
not  admit  of  people  doing  as  they  pleased,  and 
creating  so  much  confusion  :  they  observed  to 
me  that  the  people  who  were  connected  with 
them  were  not  charged  unreasonable  profits  for 
supplies,  and  were  provided  for  when  they  were 
old:  the  fur  trade,  they  remarked,  would  never 
flag  with  them,  because  they  had  all  the  north 
country  in  their  own  hands,  and  had  secured  the 
best  trappers  even  in  the  southern  parts :  some 
of  them  gave  it  as  their  opinion  that  the  Ameri- 
can Fur  Companies  C9uld  not  contend  with  them, 
and  would  be  driven  out  of  the  country  by  supe- 
rior capital  and  untiring  energy;  so  that  in  the 
end  the  whole  country  would  be  in  their  hands, 
and  that  they  would  keep  it,  for  they  "  acted"  so 
kindly  and  liberally  to  the  Blackfeet,  the  Crows, 
and  all  the  Indians  on  the  Columbia,  that  they 
would  always  side  with  the  British,  "and  it 
•would  never  be  worth  while  for  the  Americans 
to  try  to  root  'em  out,  for  they  couldn't  do  it." 

These  appeared  to  me  to  be  sensible  observa- 
tions, and  under  such  circumstances  the  terri- 
tory on  the  Columbia  would  not  seem  to  war- 
rant any  great  effort  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States  to  establish  a  colony  in  so  remote  a  situ- 
ation ;  one,  indeed,  which  would  have  to  be  kept 
up  at  an  enormous  expense,  without  any  great 
object  in  view,  and  without  any  great  advantage 
to  be  obtained  by  it.  It  is  very  clear  that  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  which  has  such  nu- 
merous posts  and  important  agricultural  settle- 
ments in  the  Columbia  territory,  are  the  real  and 
only  colonists  who  can  maintain  themselves 
there.  No  doubt  that  territory,  in  an  agricultural 
point  of  view,  has  been  extravagantly  over-rated ; 
but  that  the  British  Government  will  ever  sur- 
render the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river,  through 
which  it  has  an  uninterrupted  communication 
from  duebec  to  China,  is  highly  improbable ; 
quite  as  much  so  as  that  the  United  States  will 
commence  an  expensive  career  of  colonization, 
which,  although  occurring  naturally  to  England 


from  her  limited  home,  the  industry,  wealth,  and 
increase  of  her  population,  would  seem  to  be 
very  unwise  on  the  part  of  a  country  which  ap- 
pears called  upon  by  what  is  due  to  its  own 
prosperity  to  curtail  its  possessions  rather  than 
to  increase  them. 

The  markets  of  St.  Louis  are  full  of  excellent 
things;  game  of  every  kind  is  in  profusion,  and 
extremely  cheap;  but,  unfortunately,  these  good 
things  are  always  irretrievably  ruined  in  the 
cooking  at  our  hotel.  At  General  Clarke's,  how- 
ever, I  ate  some  wild  ducks  very  nicely  dressed, 
and  which  I  thought  as  tender  and  high  flavoured 
as  the  famous  canvass-back  ducks  of  the  Susque- 
hannah.  In  my  walks  1  frequently  met  sportsmen 
coming  home  loaded  with  wild  fowl,  the  splendid 
wood-duck  (Anas  sponsa\  with  his  magnificent 
crest,  and  those  beautiful  teals  with  blue  (Aims 
discors)  and  green  wings.  As  to  venison  I  have 
seen  very  little  of  it,  and  it  has  always  been  so 
badly  dressed  wherever  I  have  met  with  it,  that 
I  have  generally  thought  it  the  worst  meat  at  ta- 
ble. The  fish  of  these  waters  is  very  good,  es- 
pecially the  catfish  (JPiiaehdus?),  which  are  rich 
and  palatable  without  sauce  of  any  kind.  The 
country,  indeed,  abounds  with  what  is  good,  but 
the  majority  of  the  people  do  not  seem  to  care 
how  they  live,  provided  it  does  not  interfere  with 
the  grand  exclusive  object  of  their  existence,  ma- 
king money.  Wherever  I  go — with  the  fewest 
exceptions — this  is  the  all-prevailing  passion. 
The  word  money  seems  to  stand  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  word  "  happiness"  of  other  coun- 
tries. In  other  lands  we  see  rank,  distinction 
in  society,  scientific  and  literary  acquirements, 
with  the  other  elevating  objects  that  embellish 
and  dignify  human  Hie,  pursued  by  great  num- 
bers with  constancy  and  ardour;  but  here  all 
other  avenues  to  advancement,  except  the  golden 
one,  seem  nearly  untrod — the  shortest  cut,  coute 
qui  coute,  to  that  which  leads  to  ready  money 
being  the  favourite  one.  Where  this  sordid 
passion  stifles  the  generous  ones,  a  rapacious 
selfishness  is  sure  to  establish  itself;  men  cease 
to  act  for  the  general  welfare,  and  society  at 
length  resolves  itself  into  a  community,  the  great 
object  of  every  individual  of  which  is  to  grasp 
as  much  as  will  last  as  long  as  himself. 

In  every  large  town  of  the  United  States 
where  I  have  been,  I  have,  it  is  true,  found  ami- 
able and  delightful  exceptions  to  this  general  de- 
fect in  the  American  character;  but  such  is  the 
force  of  evil  example,  that  hereafter  it  is  to  be 
apprehended  they  may  stand  about  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  whole  that  the  planets  do  to  the 
fixed  stars.  The  officers  of  the  United  States 
army,  however,  appear  strikingly  exempted  from, 
this  base  inclination  of  sacrificing  everything  to 
money;  these  gentlemen  are  much  better  edu- 
cated than  they  used  to  be,  and  appear  to  have 
neither  the  opportunity  nor  the  inclination  to  de- 
grade the  military  prestige. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Purchase  a  Waggon— Old  French  Town  of  St.  Charles  on 
the  Missouri— Linden  Grove— Origin  of  the  Mounds- 
Customs  of  the  Osage  Indians. 

BEFORE  we  left  St.  Louis  I  purchased  a  nice 
little  waggon  called  a  Dearborn,  and  a  young 
horse  that  had  been  sired  by  one  of  the  wild 
prairie  horses ;  he  was  a  very  elegant  animal, 
good-tempered,  appeared  sound,  and  I  named 
him  Missouri.  We  were  now  at  the  end  of  all 


70 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


stage-coach  travelling,  and  as  I  was  desirous 
of  proceeding  in  a  southern  direction  as  far  as 
the  frontier  of  Mexico,  I  thought  it  was  better 
to  procure  a  conveyance  of  this  sort  than  to 
purchase  horses :  with  it  we  could  carry  our 
luggage,  our  specimens,  and  some  provisions  ; 
•when  one  of  us  was  walking  the  other  could 
drive,  and  we  could  sleep  under  it  at  night  into 
the  bargain.  It  gave  us  great  pleasure  to  think 
we  should  be  quite  independent  with  this  little 
equipage,  should  have  no  smoking  and  spitting 
passengers,  no  cursing  and  swearing  drivers, 
and  nobody  to  care  about  but  ourselves  and 
Missouri,  whose  beautiful  grey  skin,  arched 
neck,  full  eye,  and  ample  tail  attracted  great 
attention. 

Our  first  excursion  with  him  was  to  the  old 
French  town  of  St.  Charles,  on  the  Missouri. 
The  road  over  the  prairie  was  excellent ;  we 
passed  a  race-course,  and  a  tolerable  tavern 
four  miles  from  St.  Louis,  where  the  land  was 
so  good  that  35  dollars  an  acre  was  asked  for  it. 
Farther  on  the  plain  was  agreeably  diversified 
by  woodland  and  small  valleys,  and  game  seem- 
ed to  be  plentiful,  for  we  passed  numerous  cov- 
eys of  fine  quails,  so  tame  that  they-  woald  scarce 
get  out  of  our  way.  We  came  also  within 
eighty  yards  of  three  beautiful  deer,  in  fine  con- 
dition ;  they  were  amusing  themselves  quietly 
in  the  middle  of  the  road,  and,  as  we  drew 
nearer,  bounded  gracefully  into  the  thicket.  At 
fifteen  miles  from  St.  Louis  we  came  to  Owen's 
station,  a  poor  village  in  a  fertile  tract  of  land 
which  was  first  settled  when  the  Spaniards 
possessed  the  country  :  from  hence  the  coun- 
try fell  gradually  towards  the  valley  of  the  Mis- 
souri, in  the  way  to  which  we  passed  some  beds 
of  horizontal  limestone  which  a  stream  had  un- 
covered, and  then  came  to  a  rich  black  bottom 
about  two  miles  broad,  which,  like  that  adjoin- 
ing the  Mississippi,  formed  part  of  the  ancient 
bA  of  the  river  when  its  waters  were  more  vo- 
luminious.  We  saw  the  north  bank  of  the  Mis- 
souri before  we  saw  the  river  itself,  and  at  length 
came  suddenly  upon  it.  When  the  waters  are 
high,  it  would  seem,  from  the  muddy  margin, 
to  be  about  4000  feet  wide  ;  but  at  this  time  it 
was  unusually  low,  and  in  the  deepest  part  the 
stream  did  not  exceed  fifteen  feet  in  depth,  hav- 
ing a  clayey  sluggish  appearance. 

The  south  bank  consists  of  strata  of  clay  and 
loam,  and  is  constantly  wearing  away  ;  but  the 
north  bank  is  a  gentle  slope,  exhibiting  various 
beds  of  fossiliferous  limestone,  probably  the 
equivalent  of  the  carboniferous  limestone  of 
England.  There  are  some  circumstances  con- 
nected with  the  alluvial  banks  of  the  Missouri 
and  Mississippi  which  deserve  notice.  The  soil 
on  the  south  bank  of  the  Missouri  extended, 
within  the  recollection  of  individuals  now  liv- 
ing, so  much  farther  into  the  river  as  to  have 
contracted  the  channel — as  I  was  informed— -to 
three-fourths  of  the  present  width  ;  perhaps  this 
may  be  exaggerated,  but  a  person  whose  house 
•we  passed  about  one  hundred  yards  from  the 
edge  of  the  present  bank  has  been  obliged  to 
remove  it  three  times,  and  it  appeared  to  me 
that  he  would  have  to  repeat  the  operation 
within  the  next  ten  years.  The  same  wearing 
away  of  the  alluvial  bank  on  the  east  side  of 
the  Mississippi,  opposite  to  St.  Louis,  is  going 
on  at  the  same  rate.  There  are  persons  who 


remember  when  voices  could  be  heard  across 
that  river,  which  is  not  the  case  at  present.  If 
this  is  permitted  to  go  on  long,  these  rivers  will 
carry  away  the  alluvial  banks,  will  re-establish 
their  dominion  over  the  width  of  the  ancient 
channel,  and  the  present  volume  of  water 
spreading  itself  over  so  great  an  increase  of 
breadth,  the  navigation  will  be  destroyed,  as  it 
is  in  the  Hudson  River,  near  to  the  city  of  Al- 
bany. This  would  be  a  great  misfortune  to  the 
city  of  St.  Louis,  and  it  ought  to  be  averted  in 
time. 

St.  Charles  is  a  poor  tatterdemalion-looking 
place,  presenting  a  long  street  with  some  old 
French  houses,  and  shabby  brick  stores,  where 
a  few  American  shopkeepers  are  wasting  away 
their  lives.  The  tavern  we  put  up  at  was  in 
keeping  with  the  rest,  the  bed-room  we  were 
shown  into  being  so  dirty  and  comfortless  that 
we  gave  up  all  hope  of  a  good  night's  rest.  We 
therefore  walked  into  the  country  about  a  mile 
and  a  half,  to  a  Major  Sibley's,  to  whom  I  had 
a  letter.  His  villa,  which  is  called  Linden 
Grove,  is  prettily  situated  on  the  plateau  about 
a  mile  back  from  the  river,  where  the  country 
undulates  gracefully,  and  has  fine  woodlands. 
Everything  looked  rural  and  nice  about  the 
house,  the  trees  were  cleared  away  with  taste, 
and  there  was  an  extensive  garden  bearing 
marks  of  unusual  care.  The  Major  received  us 
very  cordially,  and  I  soon  discovered  that  he 
was  an  intelligent  and  agreeable  person.  If  he 
had  asked  us  to  bivouac  in  his  neat  garden,  we 
should  have  been  grateful ;  but  he  pressed  us 
so  earnestly  to  stay  all  night  with  him,  offering 
the  great  luxury  of  separate  bed-rooms,  that  I 
really  thought  him  one  of  the  most  enlightened 
men  I  had  met  with  in  the  western  country. 

He  had  resided  many  years  amongst  the  west- 
ern Indians  as  agent  of  the  United  States,  and 
had  been  one  of  the  commissioners  appointed 
to  lay  out  the  traders'  great  road  to  Santa  Fe, 
in  Mexico.  We  soon  got  into  conversation 
about  the  lofty  mounds  I  had  seen,  when  he 
stated  that  an  ancient  chief  of  the  Osage  In- 
dians (corrupted  by  the  French  from  Whashash) 
informed  him  whilst  he  was  a  resident  amongst 
them,  that  a  large  conical  mound,  which  he, 
Major  Sibley,  was  in  the  habit  of  seeing  every 
day  whilst  he  resided  amongst  them,  was  con- 
structed when  he  was  a  boy.  That  a  chief  of 
his  nation,  who  was  a  most  distinguished  war- 
rior, and  greatly  beloved  by  the  Indians,  and 
who  was  called  Jean  Defoe  by  the  French,  un- 
expectedly died  whilst  all  the  men  of  his  tribe 
were  hunting  in  a  distant  country.  His  friends 
buried  him  in  the  usual  manner,  with  his  weap- 
ons, his  earthen  pot,  and  the  usual  accompani- 
ments, and  raised  a  small  mound  over  his  re- 
mains. When  the  nation  returned  from  the 
hunt,  this  mound  was  enlarged  at  intervals,  ev- 
ery man  assisting  to  carry  materials,  and  thus 
the  accumulation  of  earth  went  on  for  a  long 
period  until  it  reached  its  present  height,  when 
they  dressed  it  off  at  the  top  to  a  conical  form. 
The  old  chief  farther  said  that  he  had  been  in- 
formed and  believed,  that  all  the  mounds  had  a 
similar  origin  ;  and  that  the  tradition  had  been 
steadily  transmitted  down  from  their  ancestors, 
that  the  Whashash  had  originally  emigrated 
from  the  east  in  great  numbers,  the  population 
being  too  dense  for  their  hunting-grounds  :  he 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


71 


described  the  forks  of  the  Alleghany  and  Mo- 
nonghahela  rivers,  and  the  falls  of  the  Ohio, 
where  they  had  dwelt  some  time,  and  where 
largo  bands  had  separated  from  them,  and  dis- 
tributed themselves  in  the  surrounding  country. 
Those  who  did  not  remain  in  the  Ohio  country, 
following  its  waters,  reached.  St.  Louis,  where 
other  separations  took  place,  some  following 
the  Mississippi  up  to  the  north,  others  advan- 
cing up  the  waters  of  the  Missouri.  He  enu- 
merated many  existing  tribes  who  had  sprung 
from  their  stock,  but  mentioned  the  Saukies  as 
a  people  not  related  to  them.  It  would  seem, 
therefore,  from  this  chiefs  account,  that  the  In- 
dian tribes  have  always  been  in  the  habit  of  in- 
truding upon  other  nations  with  as  little  cere- 
mony as  the  whites  have  upon  them. 

Amongst  the  curious  corruptions  which  In- 
dian names  have  undergone.  Major  Sibley  men- 
tioned the  following-:  Of  the  Indian  name  Wha- 
shash,  the  French  have  made  Osages,  and  have 
divided  them  into  les  Grands  Osages  et  les  Petits 
Osages  ;  but  as  the  voyageurs  abbreviate  every- 
thing, they  called  them  les  Grands  Sds  et  les 
Petits  Sds,  pronouncing  the  word  petits  ptits 
and  tils.  The  Americans,  who  followed  the 
French,  and  adopted  their  terms  without  un- 
derstanding their  language,  have  transmogrified 
"  les  Petits  Osages"  into  the  Teat  Saws*  After 
such  a  specimen  of  etymology,  no  wonder  that 
great  changes  have  been  produced  in  language 
by  savages  who  have  been  intruding  upon  each 
other  perhaps  for  2000  years. 

Major  Sibley  also  gave  us  a  great  deal  of  cu- 
rious information  of  the  customs  of  the  Indians, 
and  of  some  of  the  causes  of  their  going  to  war 
with  each  other.  It  sometimes,  he  said,  occurs 
in  a  tribe,  that  young  men,  either  because  they 
are  enamoured  of  the  daughters  of  some  of  the 
chiefs,  or  moved  by  other  causes,  are  determin- 
ed to  perform  some  achievement  that  will  raise 
them  into  importance.  Stealing  horses,  if  done 
adroitly  and  successfully,  is  considered  an  hon- 
ourable action  ;  surprising  and  scalping  indi- 
viduals of  a  distant  tribe,  with  whom  they  are 
not  upon  good  terms,  is  a  sure  road  to  distinc- 
tion. The  preparations  are  silently  made  and 
promptly  executed  ;  then  comes  retaliation,  and 
after  it  war.  When  a  young  woman  is  about  to 
be  married  amongst  the  Osages,  an  Indian,  who 
fills  the  office  of  town  crier,  takes  her  dressed 
in  all  her  finery  round  the  town,  and  announces 
that  she  is  going  to  become  the  bride  of  such  a 
young  man.  Upon  one  of  these  occasions,  when 
the  daughter  of  a  distinguished  chief  was  about 
to  be  led  round,  painted  in  grand  costume,  her 
cheeks  and  her  hair  smeared  over  with  vermil- 
ion, it  was  suggested  by  one  of  the  chief's  wives 
that  Major  Sibley's  clean  white  shirt  would  con- 
trast very  well  with  the  vermilion,  if  it  were 
put  on  the  young  maiden  ;  so  he  very  gallantly, 
in  the  assembled  presence  of  her  friends,  strip- 
ped himself  of  his  shirt,  and  the  young  lady  put 
it  on,  to  the  great  delight  of  everybody. 

The  Osages,  in  the  opinion  of  Major  Sibley, 
are  as  capable  of  showing  strong  affection  and 
friendship  as  the  whites,  and  are  sometimes 
passionately  attached  to  one  of  their  wives. 
The  other  wives  are  with  them  rather  in  the 


•  This  is  equal  to  thf 
~jv  goes  by,  which 
nto  "  Bob  Ruley." 


island  in  Lake  Michigan 


equa     o      e  name  an  san      n     ae       cgan 
now  goes  by,  which  from  "  Bois  BrOle"  has  been  changed 

" 


capacity  of  help-mates,  for  when  an  Indian  is 
opulent  everybody  flocks  to  his  lodge,  and  he 
must  have  assistance  to  prepare  food  for  them. 
These  supernumerary  wives  he  occasionally 
permits,  from  motives  of  gain  or  friendship,  to 
cohabit  with  other  men  ;  but  if  one  of  them 
without  his  connivance  is  detected  in  her  infi- 
delity, he  takes  a  summary  and  barbarous  re- 
venge. He  conducts  her  himself  to  the  prairie, 
and  there  delivers  her  to  twenty-five  young  men, 
where,  after  being  brutally  treated  by  them,  she 
is  turned  adrift,  and  ever  after  considered  infa- 
mous. This  is  called  "  walking  the  prairie." 

In  the  morning,  after  a  hearty  breakfast,  we 
took  leave  of  the  worthy  Major,  and  went  to  see 
the  Mammelles,  of  which  we  had  heard  a  good 
deal.  They  were  nothing  but  rounded  detached 
points  of  land  belonging  to  the  bluffs  of  the  pla- 
teau, to  which  the  early  French  voyageurs  had 
given  this  name  on  account  of  their  form.  From 
the  top  of  one  of  them  we  had  a  fine  view  of 
the  extensive  prairie  at  their  foot :  viewed  from 
a  distance  these  Mammelles  have  the  appear- 
ance of  isolated  mounds,  and  it  is  only  when 
close  to  the  bluffs  that  you  perceive  their  real 
character. 

On  our  return  to  St.  Louis,  our  new  purchase, 
Missouri,  remembering  his  stable  there,  per- 
formed to  admiration,  and  seemed  determined 
to  support  the  high  character  his  vender  had 
given  him :  this  excellent  person,  when  I  laid 
the  money  down  before  him,  and  asked  him  for 
a  receipt,  was  so  affected  either  by  the  sight  of 
the  dollars,  or  the  loss  of  such  a  valuable  ani- 
mal, that  with  a  melancholy  kind  of  tone  he  of- 
fered the  following  spontaneous  pledge  to  me : 
— "  Stranger,  if  that  ar  boss  don't  go  like  a 
screamer,  I'll  give  you  leave  to  ex-flunctify  me 
iato  no  time  of  day  at  all ;  if  I  don't  I'm  no  ac- 
caywnt  I  reckon,  not  by  no  manner  of  means." 
A  very  generous  proceeding  on  his  part,  since 
it  was  not  included  in  the  bargain,  and  one 
which  it  was  not  easy  to  appreciate  ! 

On  the  25th  of  October,  in  the  evening  pre- 
ceding our  departure  from  St.  Louis,  there  was 
some  danger  of  a  row  in  the  town  betwixt  the 
Roman  Catholics  of  the  lower  classes  and  the 
Presbyterians.  The  new  Catholic  cathedral 
was  to  be  consecrated  on  the  succeeding  day, 
at  which  ceremony  many  bishops  and  clergy- 
men from  a  distance  were  to  assist.  General 
Atkinson,  in  honour  of  the  occasion,  had  very 
kindly  permitted  the  band  of  the  sixth  regiment 
to  be  in  the  procession,  and  had  lent  them  two 
field  pieces.  During  the  night  some  ill-natured 
persons  spiked  them,  and  the  enraged  French- 
men of  the  lower  classes  imagining  it  to  have 
been  a  spiteful  act  of  the  Presbyterians,  seized 
the  guns,  and  threatened  to  turn  them  against 
one  of  the  meeting-houses.  Better  counsels, 
however,  prevailed;  the  guns  were  unspiked, 
and  order  was  restored. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Departure  from  St.  Louis— The  Comforts  of  an  Indian  Mat- 
rimonial Alliance  —  Tame  Buffaloes  —  Herculaneum  in 
America  —  Immense  flocks  of  Cranes  —  History  of  Mrs, 
Gallatin— Value's  Mines. 

WE  took  our  final  departure  from  St.  Louis 
on  the  26th  of  October.     Our  "  Dearborn"  just 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


held  everything  that  we  possessed  comfortably  ; 
•we  had  added  a  top  to  it  to  shelter  us  from  the 
sun  and  rain,  our  harness  was  in  good  order, 
and  perhaps  we  were  as  well  equipped  for  get- 
ting through  a  savage  sort  of  country,  cut  off 
from  everything  like  old  society,  as  we  could  he. 
As  we  drove  through  the  streets,  Missouri  be- 
came exceedingly  restive,  and  gave  sundry 
signs  of  dissatisfaction  by  plunging  and  eleva- 
ting his  hind  heels  rather  too  much  above  the 
level  of  the  shafts  to  promise  any  good  to  the 
general  concern.  The  fact  was  that  the  Cana- 
dians were  blowing  away  out  of  the  two  pieces 
of  cannon  as  fast  as  they  could,  and  our  horse 
did  not  like  the  noise.  At  one  time  I  thought 
we  should  have  been  wrecked  before  we  got  out 
of  the  town  ;  but  by  a  little  management  and 
coaxing  we  at  last  got  out  of  the  sound  of  the 
uproar,  and  Missouri  showed  his  usual  docility. 
I  remained  a  short  time  at  Carondelet.  and  pro- 
cured some  fossils  from  the  limestone  beds,  of 
the  same  species  with  those  at  St.  Charles  and 
St.  Louis,  and  at  evening  drove  up  to  General 
Atkinson's,  at  Jefferson  Barracks.  He  and  his 
lady  were  assisting  at  the  consecration  at  St. 
Louis  ;  but  he  had  left  orders  that  I  was  to  take 
possession  of  the  house  without  ceremony 
whenever  I  arrived,  so  that  we  got  into  good 
quarters  at  once.  Meantime,  Captain  Newitt, 
an  officer  of  the  sixth  regiment,  whom  I  had 
become  acquainted  with  at  the  White  Sulphur 
Springs,  undertook  to  entertain  us  at  the  mess 
until  the  General's  return.  Here  one  of  the  offi- 
cers, who  had  been  several  years  in  the  Northern 
country  amongst  the  Indians,  related  an  amusing 
adventure  of  his  own.  He  had  been  living  a  long 
time  alone,  and  had  no  society  whatever,  ex- 
cept occasionally  a  few  of  the  Indian  chiefs 
whom  he  knew,  one  of  whom  had  a  young  and 
rather  pleasing  daughter.  Her  brother,  who 
had  been  amongst  the  whites,  and  spoke  a  little 
English,  one  day  asked  him  if  he  would  like  to 
have  her  for  a  wife,  and  told  him  that  if  he 
would  make  the  usual  presents  to  the  family, 
she  should  come  to  his  lodge.  As  she  was  a 
comely  and  clean-looking  young  squaw,  he  got 
the  necessary  presents  from  the  sutler,  consist- 
ing of  cloth,  blankets,  tobacco,  gunpowder,  &c., 
and  delivered  them  to  her  friends  ;  upon  which 
she  was  brought  to  his  tent,  and  left  there,  di- 
vested however  of  every  article  of  clothing,  ex- 
cept an  old  dirty  blanket  which  covered  her 
shoulders.  When  he  returned  in  the  evening 
he  found  this  young  creature  crouching  down  in 
a  corner,  and  half-frightened  out  of  her  senses. 
He  now  sent  for  some  old  squaws,  and  had  her 
thoroughly  scrubbed,  washed,  combed,  and  clad 
in  new  clothes.  The  next  morning  he  went 
out  a  hunting,  and  on  his  return  in  the  evening 
found  they  had  taken  all  her  clothes  away  again. 
This  was  repeated  three  times,  when,  losing  his 
patience,  he  told  the  brother  that  if  it  were  done 
again,  he  would  send  her  back  to  her  father's 
lodge,  and  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  her. 
Although  she  was  now  permitted  to  keep  her 
clothes,  he  was  soon  visited  by  an  annoyance 
of  another  kind,  for  every  day  all  her  friends 
and  relations  came  to  his  tent  to  see  her  and 
talk  to  her,  and  as  the  Indians  are  the  idlest 
people  in  the  world  when  not  occupied  in  the 
chase  or  in  war,  he  found  it  at  length  impossi 
ble  to  drive  them  away. 


The  fact  is,  that  when  there  is  anything  to 
eat  in  a  lodge,  the  Indians  go  to  work  as  if  there 
would  be  something  wrong  in  procrastination, 
and  so  seriously  set  about  eating  everything  up 
at  once  ;  and  his  young  housekeeper  following 
-he  example  she  had  witnessed  at  her  lather's 
lodge,  gave  them  everything  she  could  lay  her 
band  upon  ;  they  ate  his  bread,  his  meat,  his 
sugar,  and  they  used  everything  that  he  had  in 
lis  tent  besides.  At  length  they  took  to  sleep- 
'ng  in  it,  so  that  it  was  in  a  fair  way  of  becom- 
ng  a  receptacle  of  filth  of  every  kind.  He  now 
bund  out  that  the  comforts  of  matrimony  with, 
a  comely  and  clean-looking  Indian  maiden  may 
3e  purchased  rather  too  dear,  and  like  all  men. 
who  have  made  a  precious  bad  bargain,  began, 
to  sigh  for  the  tranquillity  of  his  bachelor's  life. 
At  length  his  impatience  became  so  great,  that 
tie  told  his  brother-in-law,  the  match-maker,  he 
was  determined  to  strike  the  tent,  and  break  up 
the  matrimonial  connexion.  But  the  brother 
took  it  up  very  punctiliously,  and  said  as  the 
irl  had  not  been  unfaithful,  he  could  not  do  it 
without  offending  all  her  relations  :  this  the  of- 
ficer was  aware  of,  and  would  have  been  not  a 
little  puzzled  what  to  do,  if  the  Indian — who 
from  the  first  had  been  more  solicitous  about 
what  he  could  get  from  him  than  for  the  honour 
of  his  alliance — had  not  relieved  his  anxiety  by 
saying,  "  You  my  broder,  you  got  big  heart  here, 
very  big  heart ;  you  lay  blanket  on  ground,  rifle, 
powder,  shot,  tobacco,  cloth  for  leggings,  my 
sister  go  back  with  me  to  lodge."  The  officer 
saw  at  once  that  this  was  the  least  troublesome 
and  expensive  course  to  pursue  to  get  a  divorce, 
so  closed  with  the  offer,  and  thus  got  rid  of  his 
lady,  who  very  contentedly  went  back  to  her 
connexions  with  her  new  suit  of  clothes  on. 

The  limestone  beds  on  the  shore  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi here  abound  in  cyathophylla,  calamo- 
pora,  and  terebratula  ;  they  also  contain  round 
nodules  of  flint,  with  silicified  alcyonia  and  en- 
crinites  :  the  bluffs  are  about  150  feet  high,  and 
are  composed  of  various  beds  of  limestone.  On 
the  evening  of  the  27th  General  Atkinson  and 
his  lady  arrived,  with  information  that  the  fes- 
tival had  gone  off  harmoniously,  and  that  the 
spiking  of  the  cannons  had  been  traced  to  some 
idle  young  fellows  for  whose  conduct  no  sect 
was  responsible.  On  the  28th  we  bade  adieu  to 
our  kind  friends  at  Jefferson  Barracks,  and  took 
our  departure  for  the  lead  mines  in  the  State  of 
Missouri.  * 

The  country  for  a  great  distance  around  the 
garrison  abounds  with  the  same  kind  of  depres- 
sions on  the  surface  that  we  noticed  in  the  lime- 
stone country  betwixt  Nashville  and  Louisville, 
called  sink-holes.  The  road  was  indifferent, 
and  led  through  a  forest  of  oaks,  through  which, 
as  we  were  passing,  we  were  very  much  amu- 
sed with  the  quails,  which  were  so  numerous 
and  tame  that  they  would  scarce  get  out  of  the 
way  with  a  crack  from  the  whip-lash.  After 
driving  eight  miles,  we  came  to  a  broad  rich  bot- 
tom of  land,  through  which  flows  the  Merrimac 
River,  a  beautiful  stream,  about  160  yards  wide. 
The  southern  sources  of  this  river  rise  in  Wash- 
ington County,  in  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  on 
its  way  to  the  Mississippi  it  receives  Big  River, 
about  thirty  miles  west  from  its  muuth  :  we 
crossed  it  in  a  ferry-boat,  about  one  mile  from 
the  confluence.  Rising  out  of  this  valley  we 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


73 


came  again  upon  the  table-land  to  a  high  undu- 
lating country,  consisting  of  limestone,  with 
abundance  of  chalcedonised  chert.  The  ex- 
traordinary quantity  of  siliceous  matter  in  these 
calcareous  beds  is  quite  remarkable.  At  the 
Sulphur  Springs,  sixteen  miles  from  the  garri- 
.son,  we  were  overtaken  by  a  cold  heavy  rain, 
and  stopping  at  a  plantation  belonging  to  Major 
O'Fallon,  an  Indian  agent,  who  was  from  home, 
we  took  the  liberty  of  quartering  ourselves  there 
for  the  night ;  a  black  woman,  who  was  left  in 
charge  of  the  premises,  entertained  us  in  the 
best  manner  she  was  able,  and  laying  ourselves 
quietly  down  upon  some  buffalo  hides,  spread 
upon  the  floor  near  a  good  fire,  we  got  over  the 
night  as  well  as  we  could.  The  springs,  at  this 
place,  are  slightly  impregnated  with  sulphuret- 
ted hydrogen,  and  the  solid  contents  in  solution 
are  muriate  of  soda  and  carbonate  of  lime.  In 
a  field,  not  far  from  the  house,  I  saw  two  tame 
buffaloes  which  the  Major  had  brought  from  the 
Indian  country,  a  bull  and  a  cow  ;  they  looked 
exceedingly  thin  and  lank  :  indeed,  I  have  nev- 
er seen  any  of  these  animals  in  good  condition 
when  under  restraint,  and  I  am  told  that  they 
seldom  breed  when  deprived  of  their  liberty. 

In  the  morning  we  proceeded  to  Herculaneum 
on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  through  a  coun- 
try of  limestone  knobs  :  this  little  place  is  built 
at  the  edge  of  the  river,  in  the  front  of  a  semi- 
circular cove  where  the  edges  of  the  strata  of 
limestone  are  worn  down  so  as  to  resemble  the 
seats  of  an  ancient  amphitheatre,  from  which 
circumstance  Mr.  Moses  Austin,  the  original 
founder  of  the  place  (the  father  of  Mr.  Austin, 
the  leading  man  amongst  the  Americans  in  the 
Mexican  province  of  Texas),  who  was  a  fanci- 
ful as  well  as  an  enterprising  person,  gave  it  the 
name  the  ancient  city  bears,  which  has  been  so 
many  centuries  covered  up  near  Naples.  At 
each  horn  of  the  amphitheatre  the  limestone 
bluffs  are  very  fine,  and  the  beds  are  so  full  of 
seams  and  blotches  of  black  siliceous  matter, 
that  the  mineral  contents  of  the  beds  seem  to  be 
almost  equally  divided  between  silex  and  lime. 
We  got  a  very  comfortable  breakfast  at  this 
place,  at  a  small  hut  kept  by  two  women  from 
New-England,  who  had  brought  all  the  nice 
clean  habits  of  their  own  respectable  State  here 
with  them  ;  and,  pursuing  our  journey,  we  dis- 
covered, whilst  getting  out  of  the  ferry-boat  on 
crossing  the  St.  Joachim — which  figures  on  some 
of  the  American  maps  as  Swashing  Creek,  a 
strange  imitation  of  St.  Joachim — that  an  im- 
portant part  of  the  machinery  of  our  waggon  was 
broken.  This  was  an  incident  that  brought  us 
up  in  good  season  ;  we  were  still  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Herculaneum,  where,  fortunately, 
there  was  a  blacksmith,  and  torrents  of  rain 
were  pouring  down.  All  this  would  have  been 
bad  enough  if  we  had  been  far  from  any  settle- 
ment ;  for  although  we  were  provided  with  ham- 
mers, and  nails,  and  cords,  and  every  appliance 
for  common  accidents,  we  had  no  blacksmith's 
forge,  and  the  case  required  one.  We  therefore 
drove  to  the  blacksmith's,  and  finding  that  we 
could  "  get  in"  at  a  widow's  close  by,  whose 
name  was  Gallatin,  I  went  there,  and  found  her 
a  very  respectable  person,  with  a  clean  bed- 
room and  sitting-room  at  our  service  :  indeed, 
our  quarters  looked  so  promising  that  I  deter- 
mined to  stop  here  a  short  time,  being  desirous 
K 


of  looking  about  me,  and  examining  the  shores 
of  the  Mississippi.  As  soon  therefore  as  the  rain 
ceased,  we  sallied  out  and  climbed  to  the  top  of 
the  bluff  behind  Mrs.  Gallatin's  house,  which  is 
about  100  feet  high,  and  upon  which  a  Mr. 
Bates',' one  of  the  original  settlers,  has  erected  a 
shot-tower,  where  a  great  deal  of  shot  is  made, 
that  is  dropped  from  the  height  of  130  feet. 

The  river  scenery  is  remarkably  beautiful  at 
Herculaneum  ;  the  bluffs  are  imposing,  and  dis- 
integrate in  a  peculiar  manner  into  large  grot- 
toes, which  look  as  if  they  had  been  excavated 
by  man,  but  they  are  to  be  seen  in  the  very  in- 
cipient part  of  the  process  at  the  most  inacces- 
sible parts  of  the  top  of  the  bluff.  On  the  shore 
immense  blocks  of  limestone,  filled  with  chert,, 
as  much  as  the  chalk  is  with  flint  in  some  parts, 
of  England,  are  piled  upon  each  other.  To  the 
north  the  view  is  very  graceful :  the  alternate 
bold  and  depressed  banks  on  the  left,  the  pictu- 
resque wooded  islands  in  the  river,  and  the  rich 
alluvial  bottoms  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  making 
a  fine  picture.  To  the  south  the  long  vista  down 
the  Mississippi,  its  well  wooded  and  lofty  banks  ;. 
the  extensive  island  in  front  of  Herculaneum, 
with  a  spacious  level  and  dry  sand-bar,  that  at 
this  season  of  the  year  might  be  converted  into- 
an  excellent  race-course ;  the  whirring  and 
croaking  of  tens  of  thousands  of  cranes  (Mega- 
lornis  Americanus),  the  scourge  of  the  corn-field  s,. 
that  after  their  devastations  by  day  return  at 
night  to  the  sand-bar  to  set  up  a  croaking  that 
makes  the  whole  country  ring  again  ;  the  flocks 
of  wild  geese  that  rival  the  cranes  with  their 
harsh  trumpeting  ;  and,  last  of  all,  those  mon- 
sters of  the  waters,  the  numerous  steamers 
heard  from  a  distance  of  several  miles  before 
they  are  seen,  and  which,  when  they  appear, 
come  on  belching  and  sughing  out  from  their 
metallic  throats  as  if  they  were  huge  animals  in 
their  last  agony  ;  all  these  concurring  features 
excited  our  admiration  strongly,  and  we  con- 
fessed that  we  felt  as  if  we  were  realising  some 
of  those  fancies  which  are  so  eloquently  ex- 
pressed in  the  tales  of  the  "  Arabian  Nights." 

Being  desirous  of  examining  the  opposite 
shore,  I  engaged  a  man  to  take  us  across  the 
Mississippi  in  his  skiff,  which  here  is  about  a 
mile  wide  :  the  skiff  was  an  old  rotten,  ticklish 
affair,  but  as  we  could  not  get  a  better,  we  en- 
tered it  with  our  rifles,  and. landed  on  the  large 
island  in  front,  which  has  been  cut  off  by  the 
river  from  the  Illinois  side.  It  contains  several 
hundred  acres  of  good  soil,  but  on  account  of 
its  lying  very  low,  and  being  subject  to  annual 
inundations,  can  never  be  cultivated.  I  made 
my  way  through  the  small  timber  that  covers  it, 
but  found  no  game,  although  my  son,  who  trav- 
ersed the  island  in  another  direction,  got  a  sight 
of  two  deer,  without  however  getting  a  shot  at 
them.  From  this  place  we  got  into  our  danger- 
ous skiff  again,  and  after  being  snagged  two  or 
three  times,  ft  last  paddled  ashore.  We  walk- 
ed along  the  fertile  alluvial  bank  to  Harrison- 
ville,  one  of  those  wretched  settlements  con- 
sisting principally  of  a  country  store  or  two. 
Seeing  a  very  extensive  field  of  Indian  corn,  I 
asked  the  owner  how  many  bushels  it  would 
average  per  acre,  and  he  answered,  that  the 
crop  had  suffered  much  for  want  of  rain,  and 
would  not  avera'ge  more  than  sixty  bushels  per 
acre,  but  that  in  good  seasons  the  "land  would 


74 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


yield  from  80  to  100  bushels.  He  also  said  that 
good  corn  was  now  at  15  and  20  cents  the 
bushel,  and  that  some  persons  who  wanted 
money  very  much  had  offered  their  crops  at  12£ 
cents  (sixpence) :  he  added,  that  it  was  not  an 
uncommon  occurrence  here  to  sell  a  barrel  of 
sound  corn,  containing  seven  bushels,  for  one 
dollar.  The  people  at  this  place  were  begin- 
ning to  recover  slowly  from  their  annual  attacks 
of  the  fever  and  ague  :  their  sallow,  emaciated 
countenances,  that  looked  distressed  by  the 
monstrous  quantities  of  calomel  they  were  ac- 
customed to  take,  and  the  feeble  and  uncertain 
steps  with  which  they  went  about  their  avoca- 
tions, betrayed  how  dearly  they  paid  by  the 
loss  of  health  for  the  privilege  they  enjoyed  of 
occupying  a  fertile  soil,  which,  whilst  it  gave 
them  the  means  of  existence,  destroyed  the 
power  of  enjoying  it. 

From  hence  we  walked  six  miles  through  the 
"American  Bottom,"  the  greater  part  of  which 
is  a  rich  alluvial  flat,  to  the  limestone  bluffs,  the 
limit  of  the  bed  of  the  ancient  Mississippi,  whilst 
thousands  of  cranes  were  wheeling  about  and 
•deafening  us  with  their  cries  :  not  far  from  the 
iluffs  were  several  lagoons,  containing  immense 
numbers  of  fresh-water  shells,  especially  Ana- 
-dontas,  which  delight  in  dead  water.  Prodigi- 
ous quantities  of  wild  fowl  were  disporting  upon 
these  pools,  where  we  shot  some  very  fine  fat 
teal  with  brilliant  green  wings.  After  a  fatigu- 
ing day  we  retraced  our  steps,  and  re-crossed 
the  river  to  our  lodgings. 

The  vast  extent  of  the  calcareous  strata  in 
these  parts  of  North  America,  exhibiting  an 
uniform  flat  deposit  for  many  hundreds  of  miles, 
awakens  many  reflections.  It  is  a  popular  opin- 
ion amongst  geologists,  that  the  sedimentary 
beds  are  derived  from  the  detritus  of  other  rocks 
•which  preceded  them,  and  in  many  instances, 
no  doubt,  the  opinion  is  well  justified.  But 
•where  are  the  roots  of  the  rocks  that  have  fur- 
nished the  mineral  matter  of  which  the  whole 
basin  of  the  Mississippi  and  hundreds  of  miles 
of  contiguous  territory  are  formed,  comprehend- 
ing an  area  as  large  as  Great  Britain?  And 
what  a  stretch  of  the  imagination  does  it  not 
require  to  contrive  the  destruction  of  a  conti- 
nent of  such  extent !  It  would  seem  to  be  a 
much  more  simple  process,  and  one  capable  of 
fulfilling  all  the  conditions  of  the  problem,  to 
suppose  a  great  portion  of  the  solid  contents  of 
the  existing  strata  to  have  once  been  in  solu- 
tion in  subterranean  depths,  and  to  have  been 
sent  to  the  surface  loaded  with  calcareous  mat- 
ter, as  in  the  case  of  the  Sweet  Springs  in  Vir- 
ginia, and  with  siliceous  matter,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Geysers,  as  they  are  exhibited  in  our  own 
day.  The  manner  in  which  siliceous  matter  is 
often  found  mixed  up  with  the  calcareous  rocks 
certainly  seems  to  point  to  a  period  when  they 
were  in  the  state  of  calcareo-silicjous  mud  de- 
posited from  thermal  sources,  the^molecules  of 
the  respective  minerals  having  cohered  togeth- 
er by  mutual  attraction. 

The  morning  succeeding  to  our  excursion  I 
went  farther  down  the  shore  of  the  Mississippi, 
on  the  right  bank,  for  the  river  being  unusually 
low  at  this  season,  I  thought  it  probable  some 
beds  might  be  exposed  which  I  should  never 
have  an  opportunity  of  seeing  again  ;  and  I  was 
not  mistaken,  for  about  a  mile  north  of  the 


Plattin  Creek,  which  is  about  thirty-three  miles 
from  St.  Louis,  I  found  an  important  bed  of 
sandstone,  only  a  few  inches  above  the  level  of 
the  river,  of  a  loose  granular  texture,  consisting 
of  quartzose  grains  held  together  without  ce- 
ment, and  so  very  incoherent  in  some  places 
that  it  crumbled  between  the  fingers.  Upon  ex- 
amining the  calcareous  roeks  in  the  bank  which 
rested  upon  the  sandstone,  I  found  that  a  great 
change  had  taken  place,  and  that  they  no  long- 
er consisted  of  compact  limestone  containing 
seams  and  blotches  of  cherty  matter,  but  that; 
though  much  mixed  up  with  silex,  they  were 
fetid,  non-fossiliferous,  and  abounded  in  cale 
spar  with  occasional  streaks  of  sulphate  of  lime  : 
indeed  they  so  strongly  resembled  some  cal- 
careous beds  I  had  seen  in  the  galeniferous 
countries  of  Europe,  that  I  thought  it  probable 
they  might  be  connected  with  the  lead  district 
which  lay  immediately  to  the  west.  I  was, 
therefore,  extremely  particular  in  my  examina- 
tion of  the  sandstone  bed  and  the  beds  immedi- 
ately above  it,  as  they  might  serve  as  keys  to 
decipher  the  stratification  of  the  lead  district 
which  I  was  about  to  enter. 

We  had  been  so  much  interested  with  the 
geology  and  natural  history  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, and  were  so  well  satisfied  with  the  quiet 
and  comfortable  quarters  Mrs.  Gallatin  had  pro- 
vided for  us,  that  we  did  not  leave  her  house 
until  the  31st  of  October.  She  was  a  person  of 
great  worth,  and  when  I  learned  her  history — 
which  is  not  an  uncommon  one  in  this  part  of 
the  country — I  could  not  but  feel  great  respect 
for  her.  Her  husband  had  lived  happily  with 
her  for  a  great  many  years,  but  having  become 
a  speculator,  had  mismanaged  his  affairs  ami 
brought  upon  himself  numerous  pecuniary  em- 
barrassments :  not  liking  his  prospects  he,  like 
many  others,  determined  to  go  to  Texas,  a 
country  which  had  for  some  time  loomed  up  as 
the  asylum  of  that  portion  of  oppressed  human- 
ity that  feels  nervous  under  the  restraints  of 
law.  He,  therefore,  left  his  excellent  wife  with 
three  modest,  amiable  daughters,  all  marriage- 
able, one  son  an  adult,  and  another  a  child  of 
about  five  years  old,  under  a  solemn  promise 
that  he  would  return  for  them  as  soon  as  he 
had  provided  a  home  there.  After  he  had  been 
absent  two  years  she  received  a  letter  from 
him,  which  held  out  some  encouragement  of 
his  return,  but  another  year  had  passed  away 
and  she  had  heard  nothing  more.  "  He  has 
been  too  long  away  from  us  now,"  said  she  tc 
me  with  an  appearance  of  subdued  grief,  "  too 
long  I  imagine  ever  to  wish  to  come  back  to  us 
again.  I  think  he  must  have  pretty  much  for- 
gotten us  by  this  time,  and  we  must  try  not  to 
break  our  hearts  about  it."  All  the  individuals 
of  this  family  were  remarkable  for  the  neatness 
of  their  persons  ;  the  mother  had  known  much 
better  times,  and  although  her  conversation  and 
conduct  proved  that  she  knew  how  to  meet  this 
trial  with  spirit  and  sense,  yet  in  her  counte- 
nance well-defined  traces  of  sorrow  were  to  be 
seen.  The  daughters  were  maidenly  looking 
roung  creatures,  with  great  modesty  of  de- 
meanour, and  the  eldest  son  appeared  a  steady 
and  useful  man,  extremely  attached  to  his  moth- 
er and  sisters.  They  seemed  to  be  all  usefully 
employed  from  morn  to  night,  and  to  be  habit- 
ually under  the  influence  of  the  religious  train- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


75 


ing  they  had  received.  I  felt  great  sympathy 
for  this  worthy  family  on  parting  with  them, 
especially  for  the  sorrowful  mother ;  but  I  had 
seen  many  more  unfortunate  than  themselves, 
for  they  were  manifestly  under  the  care  of  Him 
•who  protects  and  blesses  the  virtuous  in  adver- 
sity. 

We  left  the  Cove  of  Herculaneum  by  a  deep 
miry  road  in  the  black  soil,  and  with  some  dif- 
ficulty Missouri  got  our  equipage  up  a  very 
steep  and  bad  hill,  at  the  top  of  which  we  found 
ourselves  in  extensive  barrens  containing  strag- 
gling trees.  We  had  not  proceeded  very  far  in 
the  country  ere  I  saw  on  our  left  a  denuded 
sort  of  deep  ravine,  and  descending  into  it  I 
found  at  the  bottom  the  incoherent  sandstone  I 
had  seen  on  the  shore  of  the  Mississippi ;  and 
on  examining  the  upper  strata  I  recognised  the 
fetid  non-fossiliferous  calcareo-siliceous  beds, 
•which  satisfied  me  that  I  had  got  a  good  hold 
of  the  stratification.  Having  gone  about  ten 
miles  we  stopped  at  a  settler's  named  Strick- 
land, who  had  erected  his  house  near  a  spring, 
and  following  the  water  down  to  a  bottom  not 
far  from  his  dwelling,  I  found  some  thin  beds 
of  limestone  and  lithographic  stone  of  a  very 
good  quality,  resembling  the  white  lias. 

From  hence  we  proceeded  eleven  miles  over 
a  broken  and  undulating  country  to  Vallee's 
Mines,  the  sandstone  occasionally  cropping  out 
at  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  at  length 
came  to  a  low  bottom  where  some  smelting 
houses  were  erected.  Here  were  Vallee's 
Mines,  but  as  to  regular  mining  no  such  thing 
had  ever  been  practised  at  the  place,  nor  any 
kind  of  mining  beyond  digging  shallow  pits  into 
the  alluvial  soil  in  search  of  galena  or  sulphu- 
ret  of  lead,  which  at  some  period  when  the  ga- 
leniferous  rocks  once  in  place  here  were  de- 
stroyed, had  been  left  in  the  superficial  soil, 
from  the  size  of  a  pin's  head  to  masses  weigh- 
ing several  hundred  pounds.  These  pits,  from 
six  to  twenty  feet  deep,  exist  in  such  great 
numbers,  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  drive  be- 
twixt them,  even  upon  the  road,  and  in  the 
night-time  it  would  be  impossible.  Great  quan- 
tities of  sulphate  of  harytes,  called  tiff  by  the 
•workmen,  is  found  where  they  dig,  and  a  pro- 
fusion of  dark  red  clay  is  also  thrown  out  by 
them  :  but  the  confused  manner  in  which  the 
digging  is  carried  on  at  this  place  baffles  all  in- 
vestigation. The  people  employed  were  prin- 
cipally French ;  the  men  were  brutal,  and  not 
disposed  to  conversation,  and  the  only  person 
from  whom  we  could  obtain  almost  any  infor- 
mation was  an  old  French  negress,  who  had  a 
great  deal  of  that  politeness  which  distinguish- 
es the  old  school.  The  smelting  was  conduct- 
ed in  a  wasteful  manner,  in  small  out-door  fur- 
naces, with  galena  and  wood  alternately  piled 
in  layers.  As  soon  as  we  had  seen  everything 
worth  our  attention,  and  fed  our  horse  at  a 
wretched  looking  hut  where  there  was  a  pack 
of  dirty  old  beldames,  we  continued  on  to  Tap- 
lid  and  Perry's  Mines,  where  I  hoped  to  find  op- 
erations going  on  in  the  rock.  The  road  was 
bad  and  difficult,  and  led  us  to  the  brow  of  an 
abrupt  hill,  from  whence  we  perceived  a  pretty 
valley  beneath  us,  and  a  number  of  huts  which 
we  supposed  belonged  to  the  mining  establish- 
ment. Night  was  approaching,  it  was  cold,  we 
were  verv  much  jaded  as  well  as  our  horse, 


and  on  reaching  the  place,  received  with  no 
small  degree  of  sensibility  the  information  that 
there  was  no  tavern  of  any  kind  there,  and  no 
place  at  which  we  could  stay,  as  all  the  huts 
were  full  of  working  people. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Taphtt  and  Perry's  Lead  Mines— Geology  of  the  Lead  Dis- 
trict— System  of  Galcniferous  Veins— Their  Structure 
analogous  to  the  Trap  Veins  at  Trottemish  in  Scotland 
— Farmington — Visit  to  the  Iron  Mountain. 

IN  this  dilemma  I  went  to  a  kind  of  double 
log  hut  which  had  rather  a  more  imposing  look 
than  the  rest,  to  try  if  we  could  not  make  in- 
terest to  be  housed  for  the  night.  An  old  ne- 
gress, who  cooked  for  the  party  in  this  hut,  said 
that  "  Dr.  Perkins  was  the  master  there,  that 
he  did  the  doctoring  about,  and  that  he  was 
from  hum,  and  she  didn't  think  we  could  get  in 
nowhere."  Just  at  this  moment  a  good-look- 
ing young  miner  coming  up  to  the  hut,  I  made 
our  situation  known  to  him,  and  he  said  we 
were  welcome  to  stay  all  night  if  we  would  put 
up  with  such  fare  as  we  should  find.  As  nei- 
ther Missouri  nor  ourselves  had  formed  any 
great  expectations,  we  gladly  accepted  of  his 
offer,  and  proceeded  to  take  care  of  our  horse 
and  luggage.  The  hut  was  soon  afterwards 
filled  with  miners,  who  came  in  for  the  even- 
ing, and  in  a  short  time  we  became  acquainted 
with  the  friends  we  had  to  mess  with,  who 
treated  us  with  great  kindness.  Our  fare,  to 
be  sure,  was  humble  enough,  salt  beef  with 
very  wretched  coffee,  and  not  a  drop  of  milk  ; 
but  the  bread  was  palatable,  and  having  prepa- 
red some  of  our  own  tea,  we  managed  tolerably 
well,  and  passed  the  evening  talking  with  the 
miners  by  the  side  of  a  cheerful  fire.  The 
young  man,  to  whose  civility  we  had  been  so 
much  indebted,  had  the  management  of  a  part 
of  the  concern  entrusted  to  him,  and  he  inform- 
ed us  that  shafts  had  been  sunk  here  in  the  solid 
rock  with  great  success,  which  we  should  have 
every  facility  of  examining  in  the  morning. 
This  was  very  gratifying  information  ;  for  such 
confused  ideas  had  got  abroad  of  the  geological 
character  of  the  lead  district,  that  everything 
was  to  learn  about  it,  and  these  shafts  could 
not  but  afford  a  great  deal  of  instruction. 

Finding  these  miners  to  be  all  resolute  young 
adventurers,  and  quite  intelligent  and  obliging, 
I  felt  bound  to  contribute  something  on  my  part 
to  the  entertainment  of  the  evening,  and  pro- 
duced some  old  Cogniac  brandy  which  we  had 
laid  in  for  great  emergencies  only— and  it  was 
so  highly  approved  of,  that  when  the  hour  for 
sleeping  had  arrived,  they  surrendered  in  the 
most  friendly  manner  one  of  their  beds  on  the 
floor,  upon  which  my  son  and  myself,  without 
being  too  curious,  laid  down  and  passed  the 
night.  In  the  morning  we  partook  of  the  frugal 
breakfast  of  our  entertainers,  and  sallied  out  to 
examine  the  hills  preparatory  to  descending  the 
shafts.  The  country  in  the  lead  district,  except 
where  it  is  interrupted  by  the  valleys,  presents 
an  extensive  table-land,  through  which  a  few 
slight  streams  run,  which  are  used  by  the  mi- 
ners to  wash  the  soil  taken  out  of  the  shallow 
pits  or  "diggings"  which  have  before  been  spo- 
ken of,  and  which  were  first  commenced  by  the 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


Spaniards  when  they  had  possession  of  the 
country.  These  streams,  in  cutting  their  way 
through  the  superficial  soil,  had  sometimes  dis- 
closed valuable  deposits  of  the  ore,  and  this  had 
induced  adventurers  to  commence  "  diggings" 
in  other  parts  of  the  alluvial  soil,  sinking  their 
pits  until  it  became  inconvenient  to  throw  or 
hoist  the  mineral  matter  out.  and  tjien  abandon- 
ing them  to  excavate  others.  I  observed  people 
occupied  in  this  kind  of  work  in  several  places  : 
the  soil  at  the  top  consisted  generally  of  about 
a  foot  of  red  earth  mixed  with  pieces  of  mamil- 
lary  quartz  and  petro-siliceous  stones ;  next  a 
deposit  of  red  clay  of  a  few  feet  deep,  resting 
upon  a  bed  of  gravel  and  cherty  pebbles,  in 
which  the  fragments  of  galena  were  contained. 
These  deposits  do  not  differ  in  point  of  mechan- 
ical arrangement  from  the  gravel  deposits  con- 
taining gold  in  the  Southern  States,  all  of  which 
appear  to  be  the  result  of  the  destruction  of  the 
superior  strata. 

At  present,  owing  to  the  greater  energy  of 
the  Americans,  almost  the  whole  surface  of  the 
country  is  dug  up  into  pits  of  various  sizes, 
from  four  feet  diameter  to  some  exceeding 
twenty  feet  square,  with  a  proportionate  depth. 
These  larger  areas  belong  entirely  to  modern 
times,  and  are  the  result  of  the  discovery  grad- 
ually made,  that  the  loose  fragments  of  galena 
in  the  superficial  soil,  which  were  once  the  sole 
object  of  the  diggings,  are  connected  with 
"mineral"— as  it  is  called  here— imbedded  in 
the  solid  rock.  As  soon  as  this  was  ascertain- 
ed they  went  to  work  as  men  would  do  in  an  or- 
dinary quarry,  without  much  relation  to  method, 
and  in  one  or  two  places  I  saw  a  quarry  of  the 
extent  of  half  an  acre  opened,  and  people  blast- 
ing the  galeniferous  rock  with  gunpowder ;  so 
that  mining,  as  it  is  called  here,  is  precisely 
what  quarrying  is  in  other  places. 

In  selecting  a  place  for  conducting  these  ex- 
cavations, they  observe,  as  the  miners  do  in 
Cornwall,  certain  external  indications  of  "  min- 
eral" on  the  surface,  such  as  the  prevalence  of 
masses  of  quartzose  rock,  generally  cellular  and 
full  of  groups  of  small  mamillary  crystals,  which 
are  often  very  brilliant.  These  crystals  fre- 
quently rest  upon  chalcedonized  concentric  lay- 
ers with  an  agate  structure.  In  other  instances 
the  crystals  are  formed  into  pyramids,  and  their 
masses  are  hollow.  These  quartzose  masses 
are  called  in  the  mining  district  "  mineral  blos- 
som," and  are  always  thought,  I  believe  with 
justice,  to  indicate  the  presence  of  galena  be- 
low :  indeed  it  was  obvious  to  us,  on  entering 
the  lead  district,  that  a  great  change  had  taken 
place  in  the  mineral  matter;  numerous  locali- 
ties presenting  a  confused  but  distinct  and  rath- 
er unvarying  character  of  crystallization  in  the 
agate  structure,  the  mamillary  quartz,  and  the 
indications  of  sulphate  of  barytes. 

The  hills  around  the  small  valley  where  we 
were,  consisted  of  the  same  calcareo  siliceous 
rock  which  we  had  seen  superincumbent  upon 
the  incoherent  sandstone.  Some  practical  Eng- 
lish miners  had  sunk  a  shaft  on  the  slope  of 
these  hills,  and  Messrs.  Taplitt  and  Perry,  being 
enterprising  men,  had  imitated  their  example. 
The  shaft  they  had  sunk  was  110  feet  deep,  and 
the  young  miner  who  had  the  charge  of  it  very 
obligingly  caused  me  to  be  let  down  in  the  buck- 
et, and  gave  me  every  aid  and  facility  for  ex- 


amining their  underground  works.  For  the 
first  sixty  feet  we  went  through  the  ealcareo- 
siliceous  rock,  rather  incoherent  towards  the 
top,  and  then  came  upon  a  horizontal  vein  o 
sulphuret  of  lead  ;  lower  down  they  had  come 
upon  a  second  horizontal  vein,  the  appearance 
of  which  was  surprisingly  brilliant  and  curious  ; 
for  as  I  stood  in  the  widest  part  of  the  drift,  I 
could  see  a  band  of  bright  shining  compact  ga- 
lena upwards  of  a  foot  wide,  running  through 
the  rocks  in  a  horizontal  line.  Numerous  sub- 
ordinate veins  and  threads  were  connected  with 
: .iris  band,  and  where  the  metal  appeared  to  be 
promising,  they  had  cut  drifts  into  them.  In 
ursuing  this  principal  horizontal  vein,  I  came, 
i  succession,  to  a  great  number  of  cavities  or 
pockets  in  the  calcareo-siliceous  rock  of  various 
sizes,  all  of  which  seemed  to  be  analogous  to 
those  which  exist  underground  in  the  gold  re- 
gion of  Virginia.  Some  of  them  were  not  more 
than  four  or  five  feet  wide,  whilst  others  were 
much  larger.  The  largest  I  entered  was  about 
forty  feet  from  top  to  bottom,  and  about  thirty- 
five  feet  in  diameter.  In  this,  as  well  as  in  the 
other  cavities,  they  had  uniformly  found  an  im- 
mense quantity  of  red  clay,  resembling  that 
found  in  the  superficial  deposits,  with  a  thick 
plate  of  sulphuret  of  lead  at  the  bottom  of  it,  as 
if  it  had  sunk  there  by  its  specific  gravity.  But 
what  gave  me  the  greatest  satisfaction  was 
coming  at  length  to  a  vein  almost  vertical,  con- 
taining a  breadth  of  about  eighteen  inches  of 
compact  galena  ;  this  my  conductor  said  they 
called  the  main  r.hannel.  I  took  its  course,  and 
found  it  to  be  N.N.E.  S.S.W.,  with  an  inclina- 
tion of  18°.  On  a  full  consideration  of  all  the 
circumstances  connected  with  this  main  chan- 
nel, I  came  to  the  opinion  that  all  the  horizon- 
tal veins  were  lateral  jets  from  this  vertical 
lode,  which,  rising  from  below,  had  injected  the 
horizontal  bands  into  the  rock.  The  phenome- 
non appeared  to  me  to  be  quite  analogous  to  the 
case  which  Mr.  M'Culloch  has  cited  of  the  in- 
jection of  horizontal  bands  of  trap  into  sand- 
stone, at  Trotternish,  in  Scotland.* 

Having  made  these  observations  upon  the  di- 
rection of  the  veins,  I  commenced  an  examina- 
tion of  their  structure  more  in  detail,  and  found 
they  were  all  what  is  called  in  some  of  the  min- 
ing districts  of  England  "  wet  veins,"  being,  with- 
out exception,  encased,  not  in  sulphate  of  bary- 
tes, but  in  pure  bright  red  argillaceous  matter, 
quite  wet  beneath  the  galena,  and  cutting  with 
a  shining  waxy  face.  Wherever  the  metal  runs, 
this  wet  red  clay  accompanies  it,  enclosing  it  as 
it  were  in  a  sheath,  and  carrying  along  with  it 
sometimes  nodules  of  quartz,  iron,  zinc,  and  a 
little  galena,  a  compound  to  which  the  miners 
have  given  the  name  of  dry  bones.  We  here 
find  the  origin  of  the  red  o.lay  which  covers  the 
gravel  beds  of  the  superficial  soil  in  the  valleys, 
and  an  almost  incontrovertible  proof  that  that 
deposit  is  the  result  of  the  destruction  of  an- 
cient beds.  Everything  connected  with  the  ge- 
ological phenomena  of  the  metallic  districts  of 
this  country  concurs  to  show  that  there  has 
been  in  ancient,  times  a  period  of  great  violence, 
accompanied  with  mighty  aqueous  action,  that 
has  ended  in  greatly  lowering  the  ancient  sur- 
face. 

We  were  informed  that  they  could  raise  and 
*  Vide  M'Culloch's  ""Western  Highlands  of  Scotland."  " 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA, 


bring  to  the  surface  at  these  mines  5000  Ins. 
weight  of  the  ore  a  day,  a  quantity  that  I  should 
think  could  be  easily  quadrupled,  if  the  demand 
for  the  metal  justified  it.  The  compact  sulphu- 
ret  they  obtain  is  very  valuable,  for  it  is  free 
from  foreign  matter,  and  yields  65  per  cent,  of 
pure  lead  of  commerce.  I  advised  them  to  de- 
sist from  cutting  drifts  upon  so  many  of  the 
threads,  as  they  were  making  a  labyrinth  of 
their  works,  hut  to  sink  another  winze  from  one 
of  their  galleries,  and  cut  out  upon  the  main 
channel  below,  as  it  was  not  improbable  that  in 
doing  so,  they  might  intersect  another  suite  of 
horizontal  bands  of  the  ore. 

Having  paid  our  debt  of  hospitality  to  our 
iind  entertainers  in  douceurs  to  the  black  work- 
men in  their  service,  we  shook  hands  cordially 
•with  them,  thanking  them  with  great  sincerity, 
and  departed  for  Farmington,  a  small  village, 
distant  about  twenty  miles.  We  kept  the  high 
table-land  for  the  first  ten  miles,  constantly  ac- 
companied by  the  mineral  indications,  and  then 
descended  to  a  low  country  where  the  calcareo- 
siliceous  rock  no  longer  appeared.  Crossing  a 
pretty  stream,  called  by  the  French  Terreblue — 
of  which  the  Americans  have  made  Tarblue, — 
•whose  waters  were  exceedingly  pellucid,  we 
passed  some  farms  where  the  soil  seemed  to  be 
fertile,  and  in  eight  miles  more  reached  Farm- 
ington, and  put  up  at  a  quiet  comfortable  tav- 
ern kept  by  a  Mr.  Boice.  Here  I  had  a  chance 
of  writing  up  my  journal,  which  was  a  little  be- 
hindhand, and  of  doing  justice  to  my  internals, 
•which  for  some  time  had  been  upon  rather  scan- 
ty allowance. 

The  distance  from  this  place  to  the  Iron 
Mountain,  which  was  the  great  lion  of  this  part 
of  the  State  of  Missouri,  being  only  sixteen 
miles,  I  determined  to  take  a  look  at  it,  and  Mr. 
Boice  having  procured  us  a  couple  of  country 
saddle-horses,  we  gave  Missouri  a  holiday,  and 
started  early  the  next  morning.  Our  course 
was  about  S.W.,  and  having  proceeded  four 
miles  the  country  began  sensibly  to  grow  high- 
er, and  we  came  upon  some  thin  beds  of  the 
calcareo-siliceous  rock;  but  in  four  miles  more 
a  still  greater  change  took  place,  for  we  came 
to  very  lofty  hills  of  a  different  kind  to  those 
•we  had  seen  on  the  preceding  day,  with  an  ab- 
rupt and  stony  ascent.  Having  reached  a  place 
where  the  rocks  were  entirely  denuded,  I  dis- 
mounted, and  found  we  were  upon  a  formation 
of  well-defined  syenite,  consisting  of  a  regular 
chain,  apparently  running  for  a  great  distance 
N.E.  and  S.W.  Crossing  this  chain,  we  turned 
into  the  woods  in  a  S.S.W.  direction  to  exam- 
ine it  on  the  west  side,  and  there  found  it  de- 
flected rather  inwards,  taking  somewhat  a  cra- 
teri-form.  Riding  on  about  an  hour  and  a  half, 
we  at  length  came  to  a  hill  where  the  syenite 
•was  ponderously  impregnated  with  iron,  and  at 
a  distance  of  about  a  mile  from  this,  reached 
one  of  the  rarest  metallic  spectacles  I  have  ever 
•witnessed. 

This  consisted  of  two  very  singular  hills, 
sparingly  covered  with  trees,  and  adjacent  to 
each  other ;  one  of  them  about  350  feet  high, 
and  both  together  perhaps  containing  500  acres 
of  land.  The  surface  of  those  hills  had  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  paved  with  black  glossy-look- 
ing pebbles  of  iron,  having  a  bright  metallic 
fracture  of  a  steel  gray  colour  Beneath  these 


pebbles,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  there  was  a  sol- 
id mass  of  micaceous  oxide  of  iron,  and  I  traced 
it  north  and  south  near  half  a  mile,  until  it  was 
covered  with  the  superficial  soil  at  the  foot  of 
the  hills.  Near  the  tops  of  these  hills  are  im- 
mense masses  of  this  oxide,  and  the  space  be- 
tween them  is  filled  up  by  fragments  that  have 
been  broken  from  them,  with  angular  edges  a 
little  rounded  by  the  weather.  Some  portions 
of  the  ore  are  mixed  up  with  quartaose  matter 
of  a  flinty  character,  and,  in  some  instances, 
crystals  of  iron  were  imbedded  in  the  quartz. 
The  other  hills  around,  which  I  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  examining,  consisted  of  a  dark-col- 
oured coarse  quartz  with  reddish  felspar,  but 
no  mica.  We  were  filled  with  admiration  at 
what  we  saw  :  everything  had  the  appearance 
of  being  metalic  matter  erupted  from  below, 
and  I  left  the  place  regretting  that  I  could  not 
devote  a  whole  week  to  a  more  particular  ex- 
amination of  this  curious  syenitic  chain,  as  we 
had  been  informed  that  other  part* of  it  con- 
tained very  striking  mineral  phenomena. 

On  our  return  at  evening  we  saw  a  great 
many  coveys  of  quails,  with  a  numerous  flock 
of  fine  grown  wild  turkeys  ;  and  as  they  beha- 
ved with  pretty  much  the  same  indifference  to 
us  that  tame  ones  would  have  done,  we  dis- 
mounted, tied  up  our  horses,  and  gave  chase  to 
them  in  the  woods ;  hut  they  had  not  been 
creeping  about  the  day  before  on  their  hands 
and  knees  in  lead  mines,  nor  gone  through  a 
fatiguing  day's  ride  of  forty  miles  as  we  had 
done,  and  soon  left  us  at  a  very  satisfactory  dis- 
tance ;  we  therefore  remounted,  pushed  on  to 
Farmington,  and  after  partaking  of  such  a  meal 
as  country  people  roused  from  their  beds  were 
disposed  to  give  us,  retired  willingly  to  rest. 

On  the  third  of  November  we  started  at  an 
early  hour  for  Mine  la  Motte,  about  sixteen  miles 
from  Farmington.  There  is  a  good  deal  offer- 
tile  alluvial  soil  in  this  neighbourhood,  where 
emigrants  from  Tennessee  and  Kentuky  have 
settled  themselves,  but  they  do  not  live  com- 
fortably. People  of  this  class  usually  leave 
their  native  homes  compelled  by  their  poverty, 
and  not  being  strangers  altogether  to  the  pre- 
carious and  shifty  existence  of  settlers  in  a 
wild  country,  they  have  recourse  to  all  sorts  of 
simple  expedients  to  get  along,  and  end  by 
adopting,  as  permanent  usages,  the  shifts  they 
had  at  first  been  compelled  to  practise.  These, 
with  their  descendants,  become  manners  and 
customs,  to  which  the  traveller  is  obliged  to 
conform.  Their  cooking,  their  washing,  their 
eating,  their  sleeping,  and  all  their  domestic 
matters  are  got  through  with  in  the  simplest 
way,  without  much  system,  and  with  very  little 
ceremony.  An  explorer  of  this  wild  country 
soon  becomes  accustomed  to  their  ways,  and  is 
quite  contented — if  he  is  a  man  of  experience — 
when  he  finds  them  good-tempered  and  clean. 
He  is  "generally  hungry,  and  if  he  finds  anything 
on  the  table  that  he  can  eat  with  satisfaction, 
tie  sticks  to  that,  helping  himself  liberally  at 
first ;  for  inconstancy  and  the  search  after  va- 
ety  do  not  generally  produce  useful  results  in 
countries  where  the  grand  object  is  to  lay  in  a 
apital  supply  for  the  gastrics  to  work  upon  as 
ong  as  possible,  and  where  there  is  not  much 
certainty  about  the  next  meal.  The  real  cares 
of  such  a  traveller  are  food  for  the  day,  and  a 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


clean  lodging  for  the  night.  He  may  get  some- 
thing to  eat  at  one  place,  and  at  flight  he  may 
come  to  another  with  little  or  nothing  that  he 
can  eat,  and  must  content  himself  with  lying 
down  on  the  floor,  wrapped  up  in  his  own  gar- 
ments, there  to  get  what  sleep  he  can  amidst 
the  whole  assembled  family.  His  happy  mo- 
ments are  all  out  of  doors,  where  nature,  always 
clean  and  always  attractive,  generally  compen- 
sates him  for  every  privation:  there  clinging  to 
the  open  woods  and  the  murmuring  streams  as 
long  as  daylight  lasts,  he  reluctantly  seeks  the 
habitation  of  man  only  when  compelled  by  want 
of  food  and  rest. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Mine  la  Motte— Veins  of  Galena  disturbed  by  electric  Mat- 
ter—Earthquake at  New  Madrid  in  181 1  — Frederic.ktow 
—  A  Judge's  Encomium  on  the  Missouri  Bar— Panther 
Stories— Greenville— Fare  at  an  opulent  Missouri  Farm- 
er's—Life*f  a  Squatter— How  to  "  bring  up"  the  Sover- 
eign People  —  Bear  Oil  Currency—  Scene  in  a  Court  of 
Justice. 

WE  soon  begali  to  cross  some  of  the  head 
waters  of  the  river  St.  Francis,  and  after  pass- 
ing a  deep  ravine  where  strong  horizontal  led- 
ges of  sandstone  jutted  out  on  its  sides,  we 
came  upon  an  extensive  table-land,  where  the 
trees  being  nearly  all  cut  down,  I  supposed  we 
were  near  the  mine :  soon  after  we  reached 
some  miserable  log  cabins  on  a  naked  plain,  in- 
habited by  the  most  ignorant  human  beings  I 
almost  ever  conversed  with,  the  mothers  and 
wives  of  some  of  the  labouringminers.  A  couple 
of  miles  farther  on  we  came  to  the  old  French 
village  of  Mine  la  Motte,  where  was  another 
set  of  miserable  huts,  in  the  inside  of  one  or  two 
of  which,  however,  I  perceived  some  signs  of 
hope,  such  as  tea  things  neatly  arranged,  bed- 
curtains,  looking-glasses,  &c.,  belonging  to  the 
families  of  some  English  miners,  as  we  found 
upon  inquiry.  Speculators  from  all  quarters 
seem  to  have  resorted  to  this  place;  the  French 
are  not  very  numerous,  and  those  who  succeed 
the  best  are  the  English,  who  have  been  brought 
up  to  mining  in  their  native  country ;  for  being 
conversant  with  the  throw  of  veins,  and  accus- 
tomed to  follow  a  regular  system  of  work,  less 
of  their  labour  is  wasted  :  the  Americans,  how- 
ever, are  gradually  adopting  their  plans,  and  be- 
ing ingenious  mechanics  and  persevering  men, 
are  beginning  to  do  very  well.  What  rather 
surprised  me  was,  that  even  Englishmen  had 
adopted  the  method  of  quarrying  instead  of  sink- 
ing shafts,  alleging,  as  the  reason,  that  the  whole 
vicinity  was  so  cut  up  by  pits  made  by  those 
who  followed  the  practice  of  shallow  digging, 
that  it  was  hardly  practicable  to  do  anything 
but  quarry  the  ore,  for  which  the  nature  of  the 
surface  offered  great  facilities. 

This  part  of  the  lead  district  presents  many 
curious-  phenomena  deserving  attention..  Its 
surface  is  upon  a  table-land  of  great  extent,  with 
a  few  inconsiderable  streams  passing  through 
it,  and  the  diggings  are  so  numerous  in  every 
direction,  and  the  country  is  so  wasted,  that  the 
cattle  running  at  large  frequently  fall  into  the 
holes.  One  quarry  had  been  opened  to  the  ex- 
tent of  fifty  feet  in  length  and  twenty-five  feet 
in  depth,  and  another  had  been  irregularly  work- 
ed in  the  side  of  a  hill  for  a  greater  distance,  so 


that  sections  of  the  manner  in  which  the  galena 
was  connected  with  the  stony  matter  were  ex- 
hibited in  various  ways.  At  the  quarry  called 
Mine  la  Prairie,  the  galena  not  only  ran  in  the 
rock  in  compact  bands,  as  at  Taplitt's,  but  in 
some  places  was  interspersed  with  it  in  small 
patches,  and  sometimes  the  calcareo-silioeous 
rock  was  even  speckled  throughout  with  minute 
portions  of  the  ore,  so  as  to  give  the  appearance 
of  the  stony  and  metallic  matter  having  both 
come  into  place  at  the  same  time,  for  if  either 
the  one  or  the  other  were  abstracted,  no  prin- 
ciple of  cohesion  would  be  left  for  the  remain- 
ing mineral.  This  ore  is  troublesome  to  reduce, 
being  much  mixed  with  sulphuret  of  copper,  and 
only  yields  from  40  to  50  per  cent. 

In  another  quarry  phenomena  of  a  different 
character  presented  themselves  ;  the  calcareo- 
siliceousrock  was  so  decomposed  as  to  be  quite 
incoherent,  and  loose  enough  to  be  shovelled 
out ;  occasionally  it  changed  its  character,  the 
silex  and  lime  being  separated  so  as  to  leave 
the  rock  sometimes  hard,  sometimes  soft,  some- 
times granular,  sometimes  compact.  In  one 
place  I  observed  a  seam  of  sandstone  near  three 
feet  thick  lying  upon  a  seam  of  bright  galena 
six  inches  broad,  with  limestone  below.  But 
what  made  this  locality,  where  the  constituents 
of  the  calcareo-siliceous  rock  had  separated,  so 
interesting,  was  the  state  of  the  galena  found  in 
it.  A  band  of  ore,  upwards  of  twelve  inches 
wide — which  evidently  had  once  run  horizon^ 
tally  in  a  compact  body  through  the  rock,  like 
that  which  we  had  se»n  at  Taplitt's — was  stiJl 
there,  but  shattered  and  dislocated  into  myriads 
of  sharp  angular  fragments,  some  of  them  stand- 
ing on  their  edges  in  one  direction,  eight  or  ten 
inches  wide,  and  others  at  right  angles  to  them  -r 
whilst  near  to  them  parts  of  the  original  com- 
pact horizontal  band  were  lying  flat  on  the  rock 
as  if  they  had  never  been  disturbed,  resembling 
the  condition  of  the  shattered  flints  in  the  chalk, 
cliffs  at  the  Isle  of  Wight.  For  this  phenome- 
non, perhaps,  the  proximate  cause  is  at  hand, 
in  the  subterranean  disturbances  that  seem  t» 
be  peculiar  to  this  district,  and  which  occurred 
at  New  Madrid,  on  the  Mississippi,  in  1811  and 
1812.*  These  produced  very  remarkable  ef- 


New  Madrid  is  a  settlement  on  the  right  bank  of  the- 
Mississippi,  about  seventy  miles  south-east  from  this  dis- 
trict ;  it  received  this  name  in  consequence  of  its  having  been 
the  site  of  an  old  Spanish  post,  and  was  settled  first  in  1780. 
The  country  around  is  a  flat  alluvial  area  without  a  vestige, 
of  rocky  strata  in  any  part  of  it,  generally  well  wooded,  but 
containing  two  or  three  prairies  of  about  five  miles  square, 
where  cotton  and  Indian  corn  are  cultivated. 

In  the  month  of  December,  1811,  the  inhabitants  of  New 
Madrid  were  roused  in  the  night  by  distant  rolling  sounds, 
somewhat  resembling  the  discharge  of  artillery  :  soon  after 
this  the  earth  began  to  rock  to  and  fro,  and  to  open  into  vast 
chasms,  from  whence  issued  a  dense  vapour  accompanied 
with  torrents  of  water.  Near  one-half  of  the  county  of  New 
Vladrid  was  depressed  about  four  feet  from  its  ancient 
evel ;  the  beds  of  anc.ent  lakes  were  upheaved,  and  became 
arearof  sand,  and  lands  of  the  most  fertile  quality  were 
sunk  in  some  places  and  converted  into  lakes,  one  of  which 
's  said  to  be  sixty  miles  long  and  from  three  to  twenty  miles 
iroad  ;  some  parts  of  this  lake  are  so  shallow  as  to  permit 
;he  tops  of  the  trees  to  appear  above  the  water,  but  the 
depth  in  other  parts  is  said  to  be  from  fifty  to  one  hundred 
eet.  At  one  moment  of  this  convulsion  a  portion  of  the 
>ed  of  the  Mississippi  was  heaved  up  so  high  as  to  make  its 
waters  refluent,  and  accumulate  them  to  an  extent  which 
nenaced  the  submergence  of  all  the  adjacent  country  ;  and 
he  settlers  were  only  spared  this  evil  by  the  increasing 
.lower  of  the  aqueous  volume,  which  at  length  wore  a  pas- 
sage through  the  artificial  dam  thus  created,  and  restored 
the  channel. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


79 


fects  ;  they  raised  and  depressed  extensive  dis- 
tricts of  country,  filled  up  old  lakes  and  formed 
new  ones,  and  completely  changed  the  surface 
of  the  country  in  the  interior  for  a  great  distance 
on  the  west  side  of  the  river;  a«disturbing  in- 
fluence which,  from  causes  unknown  to  us,  may 
have  frequently  visited  this  part  of  the  country. 
Perhaps  even  the'syenitic  chain,  which  includes 
the  Iron  Mountain,  may  have  been  thrust  up  at 
the  period  when  an  electric  power  of  great  in- 
tensity passed  along  these  lodes,  and  brought 
them  into  their  present  shattered  condition. 

Highly  gratified  by  what  I  had  seen  here,  we 
departed  for  Frederictown,  four  miles  distant, 
over  a  tolerably  level  country.  This  was  the 
ancient  St.  Michel  of  the  French,  in  the  vicinity 
of  which  this  modern  American  settlement  has 
been  built  on  a  hill,  with  its  court-house  and 
steeple,  a  magnificent  object  to  our  now  rustic 
eyes,  so  long  accustomed  to  log  cabins.  We 
stopped  at  an  indifferent-looking  tavern,  kept  by 
a  German  named  Heihner,  an  intelligent  and 
good  man,  who  was  exceedingly  unhappy  at 
this  time,  having  had  the  misfortune  to  kill  a 
drunken  Frenchman  who  had  insulted  and  an- 
noyed him  excessively  in  his  own  house.  He 
was  under  bail  for  a  large  amount,  but  enter- 
tained confident  hopes  that  he  would  be  acquit- 
ted upon  his  trial,  as  it  was  known  to  many  re- 
spectable people  that  the  Frenchman  was  the 
aggressor,  and  would  probably  have  slain  Heth- 
ner  if  he  had  not  been  too  quick  for  him. 

This  tragical  incident  had  occasioned  a  feud 
in  the  place  not  very  favourable  to  the  poor  Ger- 
man's hopes,  a  strong  party  having  been  formed 
exceedingly  hostile  to  him  ;  for  a  majority  of  the 
inhabitants  being  of  French  origin  had  taken  up 
the  affair  warmly,  and  being  a  foreigner  he  had 
not  as  many  friends  as  a  native  American  would 
have  had.  Nevertheless,  he  was  not  without 
them  ;  some  of  the  most  respectable  people 
were  determined  he  should  have  fair  play,  and 
the  magistrate  who  had  admitted  him  to  bail 
was  at  the  head  of  them.  A  person  we  became 
acquainted  with  gave  us  an  amusing  account  of 
this  worthy  personage,  who  had  been  "  raised" 
on  the  frontier  settlements  of  Kentucky,  and  el- 
evated to  the  dignity  of  judge  of  the  county 
court  here,  not  because  he  had  ever  studied 
law,  or  any  other  art  or  science,  but  because  he 
was  a  thorough  going  party-man.  The  judge 
was  a  straight-forward,  fearless  person,  and, 
having  emigrated  into  the  state  of  Missouri  in 
consequence  of  a  ruinous  law-suit,  had  brought 
with  him  an  utter  detestation  of  lawyers.  It 
happened  that  the  friends  of  the  deceased 
Frenchman  had  engaged  the  services  of  a  con 
ceited,  talkative,  satirical  limb  of  the  law,  who 
also  had  come  here  to  make  his  fortune,  and 
betwixt  this  man  and  his  honor  the  judge  a 
grudge  had  arisen  upon  the  following  occasion 
Amongst  the  functions  his  honor  was  charged 
with,  was  the  duty  of  taking  acknowledgments 
of  deeds  ;  and  soon  after  his  elevation  to  the 
bench  the  attorney  waited  upon  him  accompa- 
nied by  a  female,  and,  presenting  him  with  a  long 
conveyance,  told  him  he  was  '•  to  examine  her 
secretly  and  apart,"  whether  she  had  signed  the 
deed  by  compulsion,  and  was  to  certify  the  affida 
vit  immediately,  as  they  wanted  to  use  the  deed 
in  half  an  hour.  As  he  had  never  exercised  this 
function  before,  and  had  no  very  clear  notion 


f  what  sort  of  examination  she  was  to  under 
go,  and,  above  all,  not  liking  either  the  man  or 
lis  manner,  he  told  him  to  leave  the  paper,  and 
hat  he  would  look  it  over  and  see  what  he 
:ould  do.  To  this  the  attorney  testily  replied, 
'  you  have  no  business  to  look  at  the  paper  at 
11,  your  business  is  only  with  the  affidavit."  A. 
ittle  nettled  at  this  want  of  reverence,  the  judge 
s  sharply  rejoined,  "  I  calculate  you  must  take 
ne  for  a  most  almighty  fool  to  suppose  that  I'm 
a  mind  to  swar  to  what's  in  that  ar  paper  be- 
bre  I've  read  a  word  in  it,  fcnd  I  ain't  a-going- 
o  do  no  sich  thing  for  no  lawyers  on  the  uni- 
versal arth,  I  tell  you."  It  was  in  vain  his  hon- 
r  was  told  that  he  was  not  the  person  that  was 
o  swear  to  the  affidavit ;  he  would  not  listen; 
,o  the  attorney,  and  the  lady  inclining  to  the 
udge's  opinion,  and  expressing  a  wish  that  he 
,vould  read  the  paper,  the  attorney  was  outvo- 
,ed  and  had  to  submit,  taking  his  revenge,  how- 
ever, afterward,  by  ridiculing  the  judge  upon 
all  occasions.  At  the  period  when  this  homi- 
cide took  place,  his  honor  had  received  so  many 
affronts  from  the  attorney  that  a  "  rumpus"  was 
expected  betwixt  them  every  time  they  met. 

When  Hethner  was  brought  before  the  judger 
a  violent  altercation  arose  betwixt  him  and  the 
attorney  on  the  propriety  of  admitting  the  ac- 
cused to  bail.  Authorities  were  quoted,  statutes 
were  produced,  and  the  bench  was  emphatically 
;old  that  he  "could  not  by  law  admit  him  to 
bail,  and  that  no  man  that  was  the  very  begin- 
ning of  a  lawyer  would  say  he  could  "  To  all 
this  his  honor  replied,  "the  court  knows  well 
enough  what  it's  abaywt,  it  ain't  a-going  to  do 
no  sich  thing  as  read  all  them  law  books  by  no- 
manner  of  means,  and  it's  no  use  to  carry  on  so> 
for  the  court  decides  all  the  pynts  agin  you.'r 
Having  delivered  the  opinion  of  the  bench  with, 
great  firmness,  his  honor  now  took  to  a  remarka- 
ble personal  peculiarity  he  had,  which  was  to 
gather  his  lips  together  when  he  had  made  a 
speech,  and  suck  the  air  in  with  great  vehemence. 
No  sooner,  therefore,  was  the  decision  promul- 
gated than  the  attorney  sarcastically  observed,. 

Some  folks  gets  their  law  from  books,  and 
some  folks,  I  calculate,  must  suck  it  in."  This 
sally  having  produced  a  universal  titter,  his  hon- 
or immediately  arose  to  vindicate  the  dignity 
of  the  bench,  and  addressed  the  following  elo- 
quent rebuke  to  the  offending  barrister  : — "  Suck 
or  no  suck,  I  swar  I  ain't  a-going  to  be  bully- 
ragged by  no  sich  talking  Juniuses  as  you,  a 
sniggering  varmint  that's  the  non  compus  men- 
tus  of  all  human  abhorrence,  and  that's  parfictly 
intosticated  with  his  own  imperance  —  that's 
the  court's  candid  opinion  —  if  it  ain't,  I  wish 
the  court  may  be  etarnally ." 

I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  visited  other 
parts  of  this  interesting  mining  district  before 
the  winter  had  set  in,  if  my  plans  had  permitted 
me  to  do  so,  but  we  had  still  500  miles  of  this 
part  of  the  country  to  travel  over  in  a  S.W.  di- 
rection before  we  could  reach  the  Mexican  fron- 
tier, and  during  the  whole  of  that  distance,  Lit- 
tle Rock,  upon  the  Arkansa  River,  was  the  only- 
village  we  should  meet.  Our  horse  Missouri, 
too,  had  shown  symptoms  of  not  being  equal  to 
the  task  of  drawing  his  load  over  roads  that 
would  probably  not  grow  better  as  we  advan- 
ced :  this  was  a  discouraging  circumstance,  as 
our  sole  dependence  for  accomplishing  our  tour 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


was  upon  him.  I  determined,  therefore,  to  de- 
fer my  visit  to  Potosi  and  some  other  mines  to 
a  more  favourable  opportunity,  and  putting  our 
waggon  into  the«best  order  that  we  could,  and 
agreeing  to  ease  our  horse  by  walking  the  whole 
way  if  necessary,  we  took  leave  of  this  the  last 
village  on  our  route  to  the  Arkansa,  and,  with 
my  rifle  on  my  shoulder,  and  my  hammers  in  my 
belt,  and  my  son  holding  the  reins,  and  walking 
by  my  side,  we  now  entered  the  endless  forest. 
In  the  course  of  the  morning  we  got  upon  hilly 
land,  and  found  it  less  woody,  but  abounding  in 
pebbles  of  hornstone,  masses  of  cellular  mamil- 
lary quartz,  opaque  flints,  siliceous  gravel,  and 
^everything  indicating  a  mineral  country  where 
•quatzose  and  siliceous  matter  had  the  dominion 
Not  only  were  the  pebbles  of  mamillary  quartz 
agatized  at  the  edges,  but  large  nodules  of 
opaque  flint  in  concentric  circles  occurred  at 
every  step.  These  mineral  indications  increas- 
ed as  we  advanced,  and  on  an  extensive  ridge 
which  we  had  to  traverse  we  could  find  nothing 
but  siliceous  matter.  Having  made  about  six 
miles,  we  passed  some  heads  of  the  St.  Francis, 
the  water  of  which  was  beautifully  transparent, 
as  are  all  those  of  this  siliceous  region. 

Seeing  a  smoke  at  some  distance  in  these 
pine  barrens,  I  walked  some  distance  to  it  in 
the  expectation  of  meeting  with  some  person  or 
other,  but  it  only  turned  out  to  be  some  old  logs 
burning  ;  and  as  we  advanced  we  found  the 
whole  country  black  and  incinerated  in  every 
direction,  the  woods  having  been  generally  on 
fire.  At  Twelve  Miles  Creek  we  found  some 
obscure  settlers,  and  at  sixteen  miles  from 
Frederictown  we  passed  lofty  hills  of  massive 
dark  reddish  greenstone,  probably  connected 
with  the  syenitic  chain  :  we  then  fell  down  to 
a  bottom  of  some  extent,  and  at  twenty-three 
miles  crossed  a  mountain  about  two  miles  anc 
a  half  from  foot  to  foot,  composed  of  the  old 
siliceous  matter,  hornstone,  mamillary  quartz 
•&c.  A  mile  farther  brought  us  to  a  settler's 
named  M'Faddin,  on  a  fertile  bottom  of  land 
half  a  mile  east  of  the  river  St.  Francis.  The 
bed  of  this  stream  contains  great  quantities  of 
siliceous  gravel,  a  circumstance  unfavourabl 
to  the  erection 'of  water-mills,  since  it  makes  i 
difficult  to  lay  their  mill-dams  on  the  solid  rock 
and  when  they  do  not  succeed  in  doing  so,  the 
water  dodges  under  the  gravel,  and  the  dam 
comes  down.  For  this  reason  the  people  aboi 
here  are  frequently  obliged  to  send  their  corn 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles  to  be  ground.  Mr 
M'Faddin  showed  me  pieces  of  galena  that  he 
had  ploughed  up  in  his  lands  :  zinc  also  am 
manganese  are  found, -which  last  the  settler 
call  black  tin.  In  every  direction  the  mountain 
•contain  magnetic  oxide  of  iron,  this  appearing 
to  be  the  favourite  metallic  associate  of  siliceou 
countries. 

Here  we  boiled  our  kettle,  and  got  a  refresh 
ing  cup  of  tea,  which,  with  the  addition  of  i 
mouthful  of  buffalo  tongue,  taken  from  a  smal 
supply  we  had  brought  from  St.  Louis,  set  u 
all  right  again.  M'Faddin  is  an  experiencec 
hunter,  and  entertained  us  with  some  capita 
wild-beast  stories.  The  panthers  are  nurnerou 
about  here,  and  are  frequently  killed.  His  sor 
and  a  negro  man  had  lately  driven  one  up  a  tre 
with  their  dog,  but  they  had  no  gun,  and  bein 
determined  on  having  some  sport  they  cut  th 


;e  down  with  their  axes.     The  animal  not 

ing  much   stunned   when   he   came   to    the 

round,  immediately  made   fight  and   flew  at 

iem  ;  but  the  negro  having  disabled  him  with 

gash  from  nis  axe,  he  was  soon  dispatched. 

his  was  considered  a  daring  achievement,  for 

ic  panther  when  roused  to  resistance  is  con- 

idered  dangerous,  and  only  to  be  dealt  with  by 

le  rifle.     M'Faddin  told  us  of  a  singular  habit 

f  this  animal,  who,  when  he  has  killed  a  deer 

r  any  creature  he  has  mastered,  first  feeds 

pon   it,  and   then  covers  his  prey  over  with 

eaves,  lying  there  to  watch  it  until  he  is  hun- 

ry  again.     M'Faddin  has  frequently  found  a 

tag  covered  in  this  manner,  and  the  panther's 

ir  near  to  it,  when  he  has  been  frightened 

rom  it  by  the  dogs.     Only  a  very  short  time 

go  he  was  searching  the  woods  for  his  hogs, 

hen  he  roused  a  large  panther,  who  taking  to 

tree,  was  brought  down  with  the  rifle ;  re- 
urn  ing  to  the  place  whence  he  started  him,  he 
ound  one  of  his  hogs  covered  up  with  leaves, 
hat  the  animal  had  killed  and  partly  devoured. 
?ears,  too,  are  numerous,  and  when  in  the  au- 
umnal  evenings  they  are  heard  scratching  in 
he  dry  leaves  for  mast,  the  hunter  steals  upon 
hem  with  his  rifle  :  this  is  called  still-hunting. 

A  mile  from  this  place  we  got  again  upon  the 
?alcareo-siliceous  hills,  the  rock  being  fetid  in 
many  places,  and  found  masses  of  compact  sul- 
)hale  of  barytes  with  the  usual  quartzose  indi- 
cations. The  change  of  level  was  now  con- 
inued  from  one  hill  and  valley  to  another,  and 
rendered  our  progress  slow  ;  at  seven  miles 
"rom  M'Faddin's  we  ascended  a  very  abrupt  hill 
about  1200  feet  high,  composed  entirely  of  sili- 
ceous matter,  and  at  the  summit  enjoyed  what 
we  had  been  long  strangers  to,  an  extensive 
view  of  the  country.  Immediately  below  us 

as  a  very  deep  glen,  as  savage-looking  as  the 
wildest  nature  could  make  it,  distinguished  by 
a  fearful  but  attractive  character  :  we  had  been 
told  of  this  place,  and  that  it  was  not  resorted 
to  by  panthers,  because  there  was  no  water 
near.  It  is  water  that  makes  herbage  plentiful, 
and  the  smaller  animals  attracted  by  it  are  fol- 
lowed by  the  rapacious  carnivorous  ones  which 
prey  upon  them.  To  the  N.  and  N.W.  were 
numerous  lofty  ridges  running  nearly  parallel  to 
each  other,  like  those  of  the  Alleghany ;  and 
here  and  there  to  the  west  some  remarkable 
high  cones,  overtopping  all  the  other  mountains. 
The  ridge  upon  which  we  stood  was  not  more 
than  100  feet  broad,  and  assuming  a  semicircu- 
lar form,  gave  a  crateri-form  appearance  to  the 
glen  below.  We  enjoyed  this  view  exceeding- 
ly ;  its  extent  and  grandeur,  the  perfect  silence 
and  solitude  of  the  scene,  the  consciousness  that 
we  were  there  alone,  in  a  country  so  wild  and 
savage,  that  if  any  misfortune  happened  to  us, 
we  could  expect  no  assistance  ;  and  the  more 
comfortable  consciousness  that  we  were  in  the 
possession  of  health,  strength,  and  resolution, 
imparted  a  romantic  and  exhilarating  feeling 
that  made  us  happy  for  the  moment. 

From  this  mountain,  at  the  foot  of  which  frag- 
ments of  galena  have  been  found,  we  descended 
three  miles  to  Greenville,  a  poor  wretched  col- 
lection of  four  or  five  wooden  cabins,  where  the 
miserable  inhabitants  die  by  inches  of  chills  and 
fever.  It  is  a  most  distressing  thing  to  arrive 
at  these  settlements  on  the  water-courses  at 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


81 


this  season  ;  the  poor  people,  feeble,  emaciated, 
and  sallow,  are  just  beginning  to  recover  from 
the  malaria  of  the  country :  to  many  of  the 
persons  whom  I  here  saw  life  seemed  to  be  a 
burthen,  whilst  others  were  roistering  about  at 
that  indespensable  rendezvous  of  every  settle- 
ment, a  dirty-looking  store,  where  all  the  vaga- 
bonds congregrate  together,  to  discuss  politics 
and  whiskey.  The  settlement,  however,  is 
beautifully  situated  on  a  rich  bottom  of  land  on 
the  east  bank  of  the  St.  Francis,  a  fine  clear 
stream  about  eighty  yards  broad,  running  thirty 
feet  lower  than  the  banks  at  this  time,  but 
ivhich  often  during  the  floods  overflows  them. 

After  feeding  our  horse,  and  endeavouring  in 
vain  to  purchase  a  little  milk  for  ourselves  to 
eke  out  some  gingerbread  we  had,  we  proceed- 
ed fifteen  miles  farther  through  mountains  and 
fertile  bottoms  resembling  those  of  the  morning, 
until  at  night  we  reached  a  settler's  of  the  name 
of  Stevenson,  half  a  mile  distant  from  Big  Black 
River,  a  tributary  of  White  River,  in  the  terri- 
tory of  Arkansa,  which  it  joins  a  Httle  south  of 
36°  of  N.  lat.  Here  we  were  obligingly  receiv- 
ed, and  having  taken  care  of  our  horse,  sat 
down  with  tHe  family  to  their  humble  evening's 
repast.  Not  having  eaten  since  I  left  Frederic- 
town,  I  was  ready  enough,  and  there  was  some- 
thing on  the  table  they  called  a  dish  of  meat ; 
but  it  was  such  an  extraordinary-looking  affair, 
that  I  did  not  venture  even  to  taste  it:  there 
was  also  a  companion  to  it  which  went  by  the 
name  of  pumpkin  pie,  a  dish  that  in  the  Atlantic 
States  is  deserving  of  every  commendation.  I 
did  taste  this,  but  it  would  not  do;  so  asking 
permission  to  boil  a  cup  of  my  own  tea,  I  ate  a 
sweet  potato  with  it,  and  afterwards  went  into 
the  yard  to  eat  a  piece  of  gingerbread,  for  the 
double  purpose  of  satisfying  the  cravings  of  my 
appetite,  and  of  not  giving  offence  to  our  hosts 
by  appearing  to  be  above  eating  the  fare  they 
had  provided. 

And  here  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  these  peo- 
ple occupied  160  acres  of  fertile  bottom  land, 
had  1000  bushels  of  Indian  corn  ready  harvest- 
ed, two  or  three  hundred  bushels  of  wheat,  nu- 
merous cows,  with  a  boundless  range  for  them 
on  the  adjacent  hills  and  bottoms  that  afforded 
excellent  grass,  great  nu.nbers  of  barn-door 
fowls,  wild  turkeys  in  profusion  around  them, 
deer  to  be  had  at  an  hour's  notice  ;  and  yet  so 
indolent  were  they,  and  so  ignorant  of  the  de- 
cencies of  existence,  that  they  would  not  take 
the  least  pains  to  prepare  anything  that  was 
nourishing  even  for  themselves.  With  such 
people  every  repast,  whether  it  be  breakfast, 
dinner,  or  supper — for  there  is  no  variety  in 
their  meals — consists  of  the  worst  possible  cof- 
fee, indifferent  dirty  frothy-looking  butter,  black 
sugar  or  honey,  as  the  case  may  be,  a  little  ba- 
con, or  some  sort  of  dried  meat  cooked,  I  do 
not  know  how,  and  as  tough  as  leather,  and 
miserably  made  Indian  corn  bread  :  if  you  ask 
for  milk,  the  general  answer  is,  "  We  ain't  got 
none,  for  the  kayws  is  somehaw  got  a  haunt  of 
not  coming  hum."  Eggs  we  have  not  once 
met  with. 

All  these  settlers  are,  in  fact,  drawn  from  the 
poorest  classes  of  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  and  I 
Louisiana.  Where  they  are  agriculturists  they  | 
are  hardworking  enterprising  men,  always  busy, 
fencing,  ploughing,  chopping  timber  setting  traps  ! 
L 


for  the  wolves,  hunting  the  panthers  that  de- 
stroy their  calves  and  swine,  and  are  continu- 
ally occupied  without  a  moment's  relaxation. 
With  them  the  ceremony  of  eating  is  an  affair 
of  a  few  moments  ;  the  grand  object  is  to  fill 
the  stomach  as  quick  as  possible  with  the  usual 
food  ;  this,  from  long  habit,  they  prefer  to  any- 
thing else;  and  the  women  having  got  into  a 
daily  routine  without  any  motive  for  changing 
it  in  the  slightest  degree,  and,  indeed,  without 
even  suspecting  that  it  would  be  agreeable  to 
anybody  to  do  so,  go  on  preparing  the  same  dis- 
gusting coffee,  pork,  bread,  and  butter  three 
times  a  day,  as  long  as  they  live. 

If  the  settler  is  merely  a  hunter  and  a  squat- 
ter, you  find  a  poor  cabin  and  no  farm  ;  a  cow, 
perhaps,  that  comes  in  from  the  woods  once 
every  two  or  three  days  to  get  a  little  salt,  and 
that  then  only  givds  a  leacupfull  of  milk.  But 
in  most  cases  when  you  arrive,  the  owner  of  the 
mansion  is  not  at  home,  and  in  his  place  you 
find  six  or  seven  ragged  wild-looking  imps,  and 
a  skinny,  burnt  up,  dirty  female,  who  tells  you 
that  he  "  is  gone  to  help  a  neighbour  to  hunt  up 
an  old  painter  that's  been  arter  all  the  pigs  ;  he 
ain't  been  hum  in  a  week,  and  I  reckon  he's 
stopt  somewhar  to  help  to  shuck  corn  (the  strip- 
ping the  maize  from  the  husk  when  it  is  ripe) : 
we  han't  not  nothing  in  the  house  but  a  little 
corn  that  I  pounds  as  I  uses  it,  and  a  couple  of 
racoons  jist  to  sarve  us  till  he  gits  back."*  The 
corn  they  consume  is  paid  for  in  deer-skins,  and 
the  heavier  debts  of  the  squatter  he  literally  li- 
quidates with  bears'  oil.  If  he  has  to  negotiate 
the  purchase  of  a  horse  to  the  amount  of  50 
dollars,  the  items  of  the  appropriation  are  as 
follows  :  On  or  before  Christmas  he  is  "  to  turn 
in"  15  gallons  of  bar  (bear)  oil,  the  current  value 
of  which  is  one  dollar  per  gallon  ;  twelve  deer- 
skins at  75  cents  each  ;  then  he  is  to  go  with 
"  a  negur"  to  Big  Swamp  to  help  to  "  hunt  up" 
some  young  horses  that  were  taken  there  six 
months  ago  to  pasture,  and  is  to  have  a  dollar 
a  day  for  that  service  ;  and  as  to  the  rest,  he 
"  is  to  git  along  with  it  somehaw  or  other." 

This  curious  bargain  I  took  down  from  the 
mouth  of  one  of  these  fellows  who  had  been 
born  in  the  woods,  had  never  even  been  in  a 
village,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  arts  and  cus- 
toms of  society.  He  seemed  a  fearless,  good- 
tempered  creature,  with  a  great  deal  of  conceit 
of  his  own  cleverness ;  had  no  property  of  his 
own  but  his  rifle,  and  never  had  possessed  any 
save  that  which  he  acquired  by  his  wandering 
and  desultory  pursuits.  He  had  a  prejudice 
against  all  men  who  were  not,  like  himself, 
freed  from  every  kind  of  restraint,  and  did  not 
go  willingly  amongst  them.  When  I  had  con- 
versed with  him  for  some  time,  he  asked  me  if 
I  was  a  lawyer.  I  told  him  no,  that  I  was  afraid 
I  was  nothing  much  to  boast  of  in  the  way  of 
business.  "  Why,  then,"  said  he,  "  I  swar  that's 
jist  what  I  am,  and  I'm  glad  you  are  not  a  law- 
yer, for  the  lawyers  is  the  most  cursedest  var- 


*  A  traveller  in  these  districts  told  me  that  he  once  came 
to  such  a  place,  where  the  number  of  little  peltry  clad  imps 
was  so  great,  and  they  ran  about  so  quick,  that  he  could  not 
pet  an  opportunity  of  counting  them.  Not  one  of  them  had 
a  hat,  and  never  having  used  one,  the  hair  of  every  one  of 
them  was  white.  Upon  his  saying  to  the  mother,  "  Why, 
you  have  got  a  surprising  quantity  of  children  ;  how  do  you 
ever  mean  to  bring  them  up  ?"  "  Bring  'em  up  !"  replied 
she,  "  why,  my  husband  brings  'em  up  every  Saturday,  I 
reckon,  and  then  1  washes  'em  all." 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


mint,  I  reckon,  that's  abawt."  "  Where  have 
you  met  with  any  lawyers,"  said  I ;  "  there  are 
none  in  this  part  of  the  country  1"  "  Stranger," 
he  replied,  "  I  once  lived  ajyning  (adjoining)  to 
the  Gasconade  what  runs  into  the  Missoura, 
and  so  they  set  off  Franklin  Cay  wnty  ajyning  to 
it ;  and  wherever  they  set  up  a  caywnty,  you 
see,  there  the  lawyers  is  sure  to  corne.  And 
so  a  farmer  what  I  owed  fourteen  deer-skins  to, 
sent  a  constahle  and  tuk  me,  and  wanted  to 
haul  me  into  the  caywnty,  and  so  the  more  he 
wanted  me  to  go  the  more  I  wouldn't  go,  and  I 
gave  him  a  most  almighty  whipping.  Soon 
arter  three  fellows  corned  from  Franklin  and 
tuk  me,  and  hauled  me  to  what  they  called  the 
court-house,  where  there  was  a  lawyer  they 
called  Judge  Monson,  and  he  fined  me  ten  gal- 
lons for  whipping  the  constahle.  '  Why,'  said 
I,  'you  don't  mean  to  say  you'll  make  me  pay 
ten  gallons  for  whipping  that  ar  fellow  ]'  '  Yes, 
I  do,' says  he,  '  and  that  you  shall  see  !'  'Then,' 

says  I,  '  I  calculate  I'll  whip  you  like the 

first  time  I  catch  you  in  the  woods,  if  I  have  to 
pull  all  the  hees  and  all  the  bars  in  Missoura 
out  of  their  holes.'  And  so  the  crittur  had  me 
locked  up  till  one  of  the  settlers  that  wanted 
me  to  do  a  job  for  him  said  he  would  pay  the 
ten  gallons  :  but  I  didn't  like  them  practyces  ;  I 
seed  the  country  warn't  a  going  to  be  worth 
living  in,  and  so  I  left  the  Gasconade  Caywnty 
and  coined  here,  for  you'll  mind  that  wherever 
the  lawyers  and  the  court-houses  come,  the 
other  varmint,  bars  and  sich  like,  are  sure  to 
quit." 

Characters  of  this  kind  are  now  only  to  be 
met  with  on  the  remote  frontiers  :  most  of  their 
cabins  are  destitute  of  furniture  and  food,  and 
at  certain  seasons  the  sickly  inhabitants  look  as 
if  their  clothes  had  never  been  taken  off,  their 
faces  washed,  or  their  hair  combed.  The  set- 
tling of  the  country  is  a  great  annoyance  to  men 
of  this  class;  for  where  the  white  man  comes 
to  plant  and  live,  the  buffalo  and  elk  will  not 
stay,  the  deer  and  bear  become  thinned  off,  and 
amongst  his  former  friends  the  hunter  is  almost 
reduced  at  last  to  the  deer,  the  wild  turkey,  the 
racoon,  and  opossum,  which  being  totally  insuf- 
ficient for  his  wants,  he  gradually  becomes  a 
dependant  upon  the  more  opulent  planter,  the 
only  person  who  has  ahcays  something  to  eat. 
This  he  tries  for  a  while,  and  pays  for  his  sub- 
sistence in  little  jobs  ;  but  the  restraint  is  too 
great,  and  at  length  he  bursts  his  chains,  and 
plunges  into  the  wilderness  some  hundreds  of 
miles  off,  "  whar  the  hars  is  a  plenty." 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Big  Black  River  —  First  appearance  of  Parroqueets —  Elk 
"*nd  Buffalo— Little|BIaek  River— A  Disaster  and  a  Night 
in  the  Woods — Ivory-billed  Woodpeckers,  and  one  of  the 
Sovereign  People  unable  to  hulp  the  reins  of  Govern- 
ment—A Forest  on  Fire— The  Currant  River. 

AT  the  break  of  day  I  left  my  uncomfortable 
bed,  and  having  refreshed  myself  at  the  well, 
examined  a  ravine  not  far  from  the  house,  in 
the  banks  of  which  I  found  some  very  long  and 
curious  stalactitic  rods  of  oxide  of  iron.  Veins 
of  micaceous  oxide  are  very  abundant  in  this 
neighbourhood,  and  some  hunters  who  frequent 
the  mountains  inform  me  that  it  is  in  the  great- 


est profusion  in  various  localities  there.  Pur- 
suing our  journey,  we  came  to  Big  Black  Riverr 
a  broad  limpid  stream,  with  a  rapid  current 
moving  down  so  swiftly  that  our  horse,  after 
taking  us  one-third  of  the  distance  across,  be- 
came alarmed,  and  I  was  afraid  we  were  going 
to  have  a  scene  with  him.  We  found  it  impos- 
sible to  get  him  to  move  without  compromising 
the  safety  of  .our  vehicle  and  luggage  ;  so,  after 
trying  in  vain  to  get  him  on  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  it  became  at  length  necessary  for  one  of 
us  to  get  into  the  river  and  try  to  lead  him.  My 
son  accordingly  got  into  the  water  and  led  him 
a  few  steps,  whilst  I  plied  him  with  the  whip- 
to  prevent  his  stopping.  On  nearing  the  shore 
we  found  the  water  almost  took  him  off  his  legs, 
and  my  son,  finding  it  too  deep  to  walk,  let  him 
go.  In  this  dilemma,  and  every  moment  ex- 
pecting to  come  to  a  grand  stand-still,  I  happily 
reached  the  bank,  but  with  the  waggon  full  of 
water,  and  my  son  scrambled  out  of  the  river  as 
well  as  he  could.  It  had  been  a  severe  frost 
during  the  past  night,  the  water  was  bitterly 
cold,  and  he  suffered  a  good  deal ;  so  we  stop- 
ped on  getting  to  dry  land,  and  soon  got  up  a. 
cheerful  fire  for  him  to  change  his  clothes  at. 
We  now  perceived  that,  if  we  had  taken  a  dif- 
ferent period  for  passing  these  mountains,  we 
could  not  have  proceeded,  for  in  the  rainy  pe- 
riods these  fords  are  impracticable  for  wheels, 
as  well  as  many  of  the  bayous  and  creeks. 

After  travelling  some  distance  through  the 
forest,  we  got  upon  an  extensive  bottom,  where 
we  again  found  the  country  on  fire,  the  leaves 
and  twigs  all  burnt  up,  and  every  thing  as  black 
as  soot.  At  length  we  reached  a  place  where 
fire  had  not  passed,  and  as  there  was  a  small 
clear  running  stream  close  by,  we  determined 
to  make  this  our  breakfast  parlour.  Whilst  my 
son  attended  to  our  horse,  I  collected  materials 
for  a  fire  ;  and  after  many  vain  attempts  to  light 
it  with  some  pretended  English  matches  I  had 
procured  in  Baltimore,  I  succeeded.  The  next 
thing  was  to  set  our  new  tin  tea-kettle  that  we 
had  procured  at  St.  Louis  on  the  fire,  and  bring 
it  to  boiling  heat.  All  this  I  did  with  so  much, 
dispatch  and  apparent  cleverness,  that  I  could 
not  help  calling  to  my  companion  to  observe 
my  rare  dispositions  in  the  culinary  line.  Un- 
fortunately, I  was  too  soon  obliged  to  put  a 
much  lower  estimate  upon  them  than  I  at  first 
thought  they  deserved,  for  my  son,  coming  to 
the  fire,  communicated  the  alarming  informa- 
tion that  I  had  made  a  veteran  of  the  new  ket- 
tle on  its  very  first  performance.  The  fact  was 
that  I  had  left  it  a  few  minutes,  and  the  fire 
burning  up  fiercely  had  made  it  complete  ly  black, 
with  smoke,  and  what  was  worse,  and  was  a 
serious  misfortune,  had  melted  all  the  soldering 
from  both  the  spout  and  the  handle,  so  that  we 
i  were  immensely  puzzled  how  to  take  hold  of  it 
I  and  convey  it  to  the  teapot.  We,  nevertheless, 
made  a  cheerful  and  hearty  breakfast.  Mrs. 
Stevenson  had  managed  to  put  us  up  a  bottle  of 
new  milk  before  we  came  away,  we  had  good 
'  black  tea,  nice  loaf  sugar,  some  biscuit  and  buf- 
!  falo  tongue,  and  were  in  capital  spirits.  As  we 
were  breakfasting,  four  beautiful  crested  wood- 
ducks,  alighted  in  the  stream  not  far  from  us, 
but  they  became  alarmed  before  we  succeeded 
in  getting  a  shot  at  them.  Just  before  we  left 
j  the  place,  we  perceived  that  our  fire  was  creep- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


ing  through  the  leaves,  and  that,  if  not  extin- 
guished, it  might  produce  a  serious  conflagra- 
tion., Thinking  it  right  to  leave  Nature  as  clean 
as  we  found  her,  we  spent  about  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  in  bringing  pails  of  water  from  the  stream 
untilthe  fire  was  out.  Many  careless  persons 
do  not  take  so  much  trouble  ;  they  kindle  a  fire, 
and  then  leave  it  unextinguished  ;  the  conse- 
quence of  which  frequently  is,  that  many  thou- 
sands of  acres  are  burnt  over,  the  mast  .upon 
which  the  deer  and  bears  would  have  fed  is  de- 
stroyed, the  buildings  of  the  farmer  endangered, 
his  fences  burnt  down,  and  his  corn-fields  in- 
jured. The  hunters,  too,  sometimes,  with  the 
intention  of  driving  the  game  to  a  particular 
quarter,  will  purposely  fire  the  country  in  vari- 
ous places,  indifferent  to  the  devastation  and 
inconvenience  they  cause  ;  and  all  this  merely 
to  get  a  few  deer  with  greater  dispatch  than 
they  would  do  by  going  a  little  farther  into  the 
country.  It  is  in  vain  to  remonstrate  with  these 
men  ;  they  live  by  getting  deer,  and  as  they  look 
upon  the  farmer  as  an  intruder,  have  little  or 
no  sympathy  for  him. 

A  few  miles  from  this  place  we  came  to  a 
shallow  ravine,  or  dry  bayou,  with  a  little  stag- 
nant water  at  the  bottom.  The  bank  was  very 
steep  ;  and  when  we  got  down  our  wheels  stuck 
fast  in  a  mud-hole,  from  which  our  horse  with 
all  his  efforts  could  not  extricate  them.  After 
many  futile  attempts,  we  were  obliged  to  take 
him  out,  unload  the  carriage,  cut  poles  and  logs 
to  place  before  the  horse  as  a  bridge  for  him  to 
stand  on,  and  using  others  as  levers,  finally, 
after  three  hours'  hard  work,  succeeded  in  suc- 
cessfully assisting  Missouri  to  get  us  out  of  the 
bayou.  We  now  reloaded  and  pursued  our 
journey,  and  after  travelling  a  few  miles  over  a 
kind  of  ridgy  country,  sometimes  upon  calcareo- 
siliceous  beds,  at  others  upon  siliceous  rocks, 
came  to  one  small  ridge  which  we  found  almost 
composed  of  millions  of  tons  of  the  very  best 
gun-flint,  equal  in  quality  to  the  chalk-flint  of 
Europe  ;  a  substance  unknown  in  the  United 
States,  there  being  no  chalk  beds  hitherto  dis- 
covered there. 

Descending  to  the  south  we  came  to  some 
very  beautiful  situations  of  fine  dry  undulating 
land,  easy  of  access,  the  slopes  exceedingly  gen- 
tle, and  beautiful  woodland  trees  scattered  about 
as  they  are  seen  in  the  charming  park  scenery 
of  England.  Having  made  about  fourteen  miles 
we  stopped  to  feed  our  horse  at  a  Mr.  Eppes's, 
who  has  a  plantation  on  a  very  fertile  bottom, 
and  here  we  saw  the  first  appearance  of  a  cane- 
brake  (Miegia  macrosperma)  :  this  plant  is  al- 
ways indicative  of  good  soil,  and  in  some  por- 
tions of  the  southern  States  pushes  up  its  jointed 
stem  amidst  the  forest  trees  so  thickly  that  a 
chicken  would  sometimes  find  it  difficult  to  creep 
betwixt  the  plants.  We  had  also  other  indica- 
tions of  a  Southern  latitude  here  :  small  flocks 
of  parroqueets  were  wheeling  and  screaming 
about  in  the  bright  sun,  and  showing  their  brill- 
iant colours  to  the  greatest  advantage. 

Upon  the  wall  of  the  cabin  where. the  family 
lived  was  a  frame  upon  which  the  skin  of  an  elk 
was  stretched  that  Mr.  Eppes  had  killed  the  day 
before.  Learning  that  he  was  in  a  corn-field 
about  half  a  mile  distant,  I  walked  there  and 
found  him,  when  he  confirmed  to  me  what  I  had 
before  heard,  that  in  the  "  Big  Swamp,"  which 


bordered  his  plantation  on  the  east,  and  which 
extended  about  twenty  miles  to  the  river  St. 
Francis,  there  were  still  a  great  many  elk  and 
buffalo,  the  only  situation  in  which  these  ani- 
mals are  to  be  found  east  of  the  most  advanced 
settlements  of  the  whites,  it  being  favourable  to 
them  from  the  great  extent  of  the  swamp,  the 
luxuriance  of  the  wild  grass,  and  the  absence  of 
man.  Mr.  Eppes  related  to  me  that  two  or 
three  days  ago  he  and  his  son  had  entered  the 
Big  Swamp  to  hunt  up  some  young  horses  they 
had  turned  into  it  in  the  spring  to  thrive  upon 
the  leaves  of  the  miegia,  which  gran  ivorous  an- 
imals are  very  fond  of;  that  wandering  about 
in  the  mazes  of  the  swamp,  and  tearing  their 
clothes  to  rags  amongst  thegreen  briars  (smilax), 
the  supple  jacks  (JEnoplia  volubilis),  saw  briar 
(Schrankia  horndula),  and  all  sorts  of  pests  of 
their  kind,  they  had  lost  themselves,  and  know- 
ing of  no  method  to  find  out  where  they  were, 
but  going  to  the  river  to  observe  the  direction 
of  the  current,  they  crossed  a  broad  "  sign"  or 
track  of  buffalo,  where  at  least  forty  of  them  had 
recently  passed.  This  they  knew  by  their  dung, 
the  marks  of  their  hoofs,  and  the  peculiar  tracks 
these  animals  make  when  they  travel.  Soon 
afterwards  they  crossed  a  "sign"  of  numerous 
elk,  and  whilst  they  were  deliberating  what  to 
do,  three  large  ones  came  trotting  up  and  stood 
still  at  no  great  distance  from  them.  Mr.  Eppes 
fired  and  one  of  the  elk  dropped  ;  the  others 
stood  some  time  by  their  fallen  companion,  but 
made  off  before  he  had  time  to  load  again.  He 
said  they  were  about  the  size  of  a  large  Spanish, 
mule,  and  that  they  looked  extremely  well  with 
their  branching  antlers  when  they  first  came 
boldly  up.  Having  skinned  the  animal  they  left 
the  carcase  behind,  and  soon  after,  coming  upon, 
their  own  trail,  proceeded  home. 

From  hence  we  proceeded  through  some 
pleasant  open  woods,  consisting  principally  of 
oak-trees  growing  on  a  very  fertile  soil ;  and 
some  time  after  night  heard  the  murmuring 
sound  of  Little  Black  River  before  us.  I  hesi- 
tated a  moment  whether  or  not  to  stop  and  biv-. 
ouack  here — our  experience  of  the  last  ford  we 
had  passed  did  not  afford  much  encouragement 
for  a  similar  adventure  in  the  dark ;  but  Mr. 
Eppes  had  assured  us  the  ford  was  an  easy  one, 
Missouri  seemed  very  willing,  and  I  thought  I 
would  proceed  a  few  miles  farther  through  the 
thick  woods,  where  we  could  have  seen  nothing 
by  daylight ;  so  whipping  on  our  horse,  away 
we  went  literally,  for,  in  making  a  sort  of  turn 
to  go  down  the  bank,  the  nigh  wheels,  which, 
we  could  not  see,  got  on  a  hummock  of  land, 
and  the  whole  concern,  including  the  unsus- 
pecting Missouri,  made  a  complete  turn  over, 
luggage  and  all,  leaving  the  waggon  bottom  up- 
wards. We  both  of  us  jumped  out,  as  we  felt 
we  were  coming  to  a  "fix,"  and  thought  with 
dismay  upon  this  most  disastrous  occurrence. 
Our  fine-tempered  horse  behaved  extremely 
well ;  instead  of  kicking  up  a  rumpus  in  the 
dark,  and  making  things  worse,  which  would 
have  been  a  very  natural  step  for  him  to  take, 
he  laid  still,  and  permitted  us  to  take  the  wag- 
gon to  pieces  as  well  as  we  could,  and  to  un- 
buckle and  unstrap  him  before  he  stirred  ;  he 
seemed  almost  to  comprehend  us  as  we  patted 
and  comforted  him;  and  it  was  not  until  he 
could  neither  hurt  the  waggon  nor  himself,  that, 


84 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


a  little  aided  by  us,  he  maoe  an  effort,  and  with 
a  plunge  arose  from  the  very  awkard  ppsition 
in  which  he  lay  with  his  back  down  hill. 

We  were  now  brought  to  a  "nonplush;"  it 
was  dark,  our  luggage,  our  axes,  our  hammers, 
our  rifles,  our  everything  that  we  had  in  the 
world,  was  scattered  on  the  beach,  and  we  had 
nothing  to  do  but  make  the  best  of  what  had 
happened,  and  endeavour  to  look  cheerfully  for- 
ward rather  than  to  look  sorrowfully  back.  Our 
first  care  was  to  tie  up  our  horse,  our  next  to 
regain  the  bank,  choose  a  level  and  open  place 
in  the  wood,  and  make  a  good  fire.  All  this 
being  successfully  done,  we  gave  Missouri  his 
corn  in  the  pail,  and  secured  him  for  the  night 
with  a  long  rope  that  admitted  of  his  having  a 
limited  range  to  pick  up  the  wild  grass  in.  We 
next  made  a  small  fire  on  the  beach,  and  by  its 
aid  collected  and  put  together  the  parts  of  our 
waggon  —  not  one  of  which  was  broken — and 
drew  it  to  a  safe  place  beyond  the  danger  of  a 
sudden  rise  of  the  stream.  We  then  gathered 
together  our  luggage,  our  provision-basket,  and 
all  the  articles  we  could  see,  leaving  my  loose 
specimens  and  other  small  matters  on  the  beach 
until  morning.  Things  being  made  as  snug  as 
circumstances  admitted  of  our  making  them,  we 
got  a  warm  cup  of  tea  and  a  mouthful  to  eat, 
and  then  proceeded  to  lay  in  a  supply  of  logs 
for  our  fire. 

It  was  a  very  cold  night,  and  unfortunately 
<lead  wood  was  not  plentiful  where  our  camp 
was  pitched1;  having,  therefore,  collected  all 
that  was  at  hand,  we  went  to  work  and  cut 
down  some  young  trees,  a  laborious  operation 
that  made  our  hands  sore.  The  last  thing  was 
to  spread  our  buffalo-hides  on  the  ground,  put 
our  large  blanket  coats  on,  and  lie  with  our  feet 
to  the  fire,  my  son  taking  the  first  watch.  Ma- 
king my  pillow  of  some  minerals  that  were  tied 
up  in  a  bag,  I  tried  to  compose  myself  to  sleep, 
and  looking  upwards  at  the  brilliant  stars  of 
heaven  through  the  tops  of  the  trees,  waited 
until  the  oblivious  moment  should  come  upon 
me,  which  at  length  it  did,  and  dreams  of  other 
scenes  came  and  went  in  my  wandering  ima- 
gination. Besides  the  rigour  of  the  weather, 
the  damp  from  the  river  fell  heavily  upon  us,  so 
that  we  were  constantly  obliged  to  replenish 
our  fire,  and  twice  had  to  get  up  and  cut  more 
wood.  During  the  night  various  animals,  at- 
tracted no  doubt  by  the  fire,  came  rustling 
through  the  leaves  and  alarmed  our  horse  ;  the 
whooping  of  the  owls  was  disagreeably  fre- 
%  quent;  the  howling  of  the  wolves  and  barking 
of  the  foxes  were  more  amusing.  But  there 
was  one  animal,  however,  most  resolutely  and 
mischievously  curious,  and  which  we  could  not 
drive  away.  What  it  was  we  could  not  see  ex- 
actly, as  it  did  not  come  very  near  to  the  fire, 
but  kept  constantly  hovering  and  prowling 
about .  sometimes,  when  we  attempted  to  drive 
it  away,  it  would  cross  the  stream,  but  ere  long 
would  come  tramping  back  again.  Missouri, 
who  was  tethered  close  to  us,  would  prick  up, 
his  ears  and  arch  his  neck,  and  look  at  us  in  a 
very  expressive  manner,  whenever  he  heard 
this  intruder  in  motion.  As  to  ourselves,  the 
worst  apprehensions  we  entertained  from  this 
visitor  were  that  it  would  trample  our  things  to 
pieces  that  lay  scatti  red  on  the  beach.  Neither 
of  us  being  able  to  sleep  much,  we  were  glad 


when  the  dawn  came,  and  hastening  to  replen- 
ish our  fire,  and  take  a  hasty  cup  of  tea,  we  col- 
lected our  disjecta  membra  and  prepared  to  start. 
I  missed,  however,  a  large  towel  I  had  used  the 
preceding  evening,  which  I  remembered  well 
having  spread  out  over  a  bush  before  I  supped  ; 
and  my  son  assuring  me  that  he  had  not  remo- 
ved it,  we  came  to  the  unavoidable  conclusion 
that  our  nocturnal  visitor  must  have  taken  it. 
Just  before  we  turned  down  the  bank  to  go  to 
the  river,  looking  up  the  woodland  road  we  had 
travelled,  I  saw  something  like  a  parcel  lying  at 
a  distance  on  the  ground,  and  going  to  it,  found 
it  was  my  towel,  quite  wet  and  rolled  up  in  a 
very  odd  manner.  Casting  my  eyes  round,  I 
saw  a  cow  in  the  woods  looking  at  me,  the 
identical  animal  that  had  annoyed  us  during  the 
night  :  she  had  taken  the  towel  and  amused 
herself  with  chewing  it,  until  she  found  she 
could  make  nothing  but  a  towel  of  it,  and  had 
then  dropped  it.  These  animals  sometimes 
stray  to  great  distances  from  the  settlements. 
I  was  glad  to  find  my  towel ;  and  having  wash- 
ed it  well  at  the  river,  and  made  up  a  little  fire 
to  dry  it,  we  finally  crossed  the  stream  and  pur- 
sued our  journey. 

We  soon  rose  again  to  the  table-land,  and 
got  upon  our  old  ground,  the  calcareo-siliceous 
rock :  it  was  a  fine  open  country,  and  very  ex- 
tensive ;  and  the  trees  were  so  far  asunder 
from  each  other  that  we  could  have  imagined 
ourselves  travelling  through  some  park.  Here 
we  saw  the  first  ivory-billed  woodpeckers  (Pi- 
cus  principalis),  a  beautiful  bird,  not  found  far- 
ther north  than  this  part  of  the  country.  About 
10  A.M.  we  came  up  with  a  sorry-looking  horse, 
with  a  saddle  on  his  back,  grazing  without  a  ri- 
der ;  and  two  miles  farther  found  a  man,  with 
a  gun  by  his  side,  bleeding,  and  lying  apparent- 
ly senseless  on  the  ground.  At  first  we  thought 
he  had  fractured  his  skull  by  a  fall  from  his 
horse,  and  began  to  consider  what  we  could  do 
for  him  ;  but  we  soon  found  that  he  was  beast- 
ly drunk,  and  had  probably  fallen  from  his  horse 
because  he  was  unable  to  keep  his  seat.  We 
therefore  left  him  to  get  sober,  as  probably  his 
horse  and  himself  were  accustomed  to  freaks  of 
this  sort.  Towards  noon  we  were  evidently 
advancing  to  a  part  of  the  country  which  was 
on  fire,  and  soon  became  enveloped  in  a  dense 
and  distressing  srnoke.  Our  eyes  became  so 
sore  that  it  was  very  difficult  to  drive,  and  the 
horse  suffered  as  well  as  ourselves.  Many  of 
the  dead  trees  had  been  burnt  so  near  to  the 
ground,  that  they  had  fallen  in  various  places 
across  the  path,  which  obliged  us  to  wind  about 
as  well  as  we  could  amongst  the  tall  trees  on 
fire — that  were  here  rather  too  thick  for  our 
safety — under  constant  apprehension  that  some 
of  them  would  fall  upon  us.  The  severe  ner- 
vous headache  I  got  during  this  morning's  drive 
was  almost  insupportable  ;  the  smoke  was  black 
and  dense,  and  filled  our  eyes  and  our  nostrils. 

Worn  out  with  pain  and  fatigue,  we  reached 
a  Mrs.  Harris's  in  the  afternoon,  and  were  glad 
to  remain  here  the  rest  of  the  day,  although  we 
had  only  made  fifteen  miles.  She  was  a  widow, 
with  some  sons  and  daughters,  and  we  were  kind- 
ly received,  but  all  that  they  had  to  offer  us  was 
bad  fried  bits  of  pork,  with  worse  bread,  and  no 
milk.  Towards  night  the  fire  gained  upon  the 
country  so  fast,  that  the  family  became  alarmed 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


85 


for  their  fences  and  buildings,  and  all  hands 
were  turned  out  to  occupy  themselves  in  what 
they  called  "  fighting  the  fire."  Night  having 
fallen,  we  could  see  a  fiery  horizon  through  the 
forest  in  every  direction,  and  hear  the  crackling 
of  the  advancing  conflagration.  It  was  a  most 
interesting  spectacle,  and,  notwithstanding  my 
indisposition,  I  was.  out  until  a  late  hour  ob- 
serving it.  We  were  upon  an  elevated  table- 
land, covered  with  dry  autumnal  leaves,  grass, 
and  sticks,  upon  which  stood  numerous  dead 
and  dry  trees  killed  by  previous  fires.  Not  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  house  was  a  nar- 
row edging  of  bright  crackling  fire,  sometimes 
not  more  than  two  inches  broad,  but  much  wider 
when  it  met  with  large  quantities  of  combusti- 
ble matter.  On  it  came  in  a  waving  line,  con- 
suming every  thing  before  it,  and  setting  fire  to 
the  dead  trees,  that,  like  so  many  burning  masts, 
illuminated  the  scorched  and  gloomy  background 
behind,  and  over  which  the  wind — against  which 
the  fire  was  advancing — drove  the  smoke.  Ev- 
ery now  and  then  one  of  the  flaming  trees  would 
come  to  the  ground :  and  the  noise  thus  pro- 
duced, the  constant  crackling  of  the  devouring 
element,  the  brilliancy  of  the  conflagration,  and 
the  extent  of  the  spectacle,  formed  a  picture 
that  neither  description  nor  painting  could  do 
justice  to.  The  wild  turn  our  minds  had  caught 
from  the  scenes  we  were  daily  passing  through 
was  singularly  increased  by  this  adventure,  and 
amidst  many  exclamations  of  admiration  we  re- 
tired late  in  the  night  to  the  house.  I  measured 
the  progress  of  the  fire,  and  found  that  it  ad- 
vanced at  the  rate  of  about  a  foot  a  minute, 
leaving  every  thing  incinerated  behind  it,  and 
casting  a  beautiful  warm  light  into  the  forest 
in  front  where  we  stood.  To  "  fight  the  fire" 
means  to  beat  this  edging  of  flame  out  with 
sticks,  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  do  when  it 
first  begins ;  but  when  it  has  extended  itself 
several  hundred  yards,  it  is  generally  beyond 
the  power  of  a  very  few  individuals  to  accom- 
plish. Upon  this  occasion  the  line  of  fire  in 
front  of  the  buildings  was  extinguished,  but  not 
without  great  exertions. 

Fires  of  this  kind  are  much  dreaded  by  the 
agricultural  settler.     If  his  buildings  and  fences 
are  burnt,  his  cattle  and  swine  destroy  what  lit- 
tle crop  he  has,  and  at  any  rate,  the  ad  vancing fire 
destroys  the  mast  about  the  country,  upon  which 
many  depend  for  the  subsistence  of  their  stock, 
which  often  have  nothing  else  to  eat :  for  the 
small  settlers  have  no  fields,  with  the  exception 
of  one  or  two  in  which  they  raise  their  Indian 
corn  ;  they  raise  no  wheat,  no  rye,  no  oats ; 
they  have  no  meadows,  and,  of  course,  no  hay 
or  straw  ;  the  little  fodder  they  have  they  save 
from  the  leaves  of  their  corn-stalks  ;  and  there 
being  nothing  for  the  cattle  at  the  homestead, 
they  roam  about  the  country  to  pick  up  the  i 
mast ;  the  which  if  it  fails,  they  get  so  little  to  j 
eat  at  the  farm  that  few  of  them  survive  the  j 
winter.     Those  who  live  near  the  corn-brakes  < 
are  more  fortunate,  the  leaves  of  the  miegia  be-  | 
ing  always  green,  and  affording  a  good  deal  of; 
nourishment. 

Mrs.  Harris's  cabin  was  a  double  one,  and  of 
course  had  two  rooms  ;  a  very  proper  arrange-  j 
ment,  as  there  were  both  males  and  females  in  i 
the  family,  and  in  one  of  these  rooms  were  two  j 
beds  When  we  came  in  from  "  fighting  the  { 


fire,"  she  pointed  to  one  of  the  beds  and  said  it 
was  for  me  ;  and  my  son,  taking  it  for  granted 
that  the  other  was  for  himself,  immediately  turn- 
ed down  the  clothes,  a  movement  which  he  was 
not  long  in  discovering  was  somewhat  prema- 
ture, for  our  hostess  told  him  that  was  her  own  i 
bed,  and  that  she  was  going  to  sleep  there.    We 
had  no  ground  for  contesting  the  matter,  so  lay 
down  in  our  great  coats  as  we  were  frequently  j 
in  the  habit  of  doing,  Mrs.  Harris  honouring  us  ' 
with  her  company  in  the  adjoining  bed,  her  two 
sons  lying  down  on  the  floor,  whilst  the  young 
ladies  very  properly  kept  the  other  room  exclu- 
sively to  themselves.     In  the  morning  the  good  - 
old  lady  asked  me  if  I  could  give  her  some  to- 
bacco, as  she  was  fond  of  smoking  a  pipe,  and  ; 
appeared  very  much  disappointed  when  I  told   i 
her  I  never  used  tobacco  in  any  form.    Take  ] 
them  altogether,  they  were  an  amiable  and  good 
family  of  people,  and  not  without  the  means  of 
living  comfortably  if  they  only  knew  how  to  set 
about  it. 

From  this  place  we  drove  about  eight  miles 
and  descended  to  the  valley  through  which  the 
Currant  River  flows,  a  beautiful  pellucid  stream 
of  from  70  to  80  yards  wide,  in  the  territory  of 
Arkansas.  This  river  is  deep,  and  contains 
great  variety  of  fine  fish  ;  salmon  from  20  to 
30  Ibs.  weight,  large  red  horse  suckers  (Catas- 
tomusl)  10  to  15  Ibs.,  buffalo,  drum  (Corrinal), 
perch,  and  large  catfish  of  excellent  quality. 
The  water  of  this  river,  corning  from  the  sili- 
ceous country  to  the  north-west,  is  so  limpid 
that  fish  are  seldom  caught  except  in  the  night- 
time. Having  crossed  the  river  in  a  ferry-boat, 
we  stopped  a  short  time  at  a  very  decent  house 
of  entertainment,  where  with  the  aid  of  our  own 
tea  and  sugar  we  made  a  tolerable  breakfast. 
On  the  banks  of  the  stream  I  found  non-fossil- 
iferous  beds  of  horizontal  limestone  with  a  good 
deal  of  chert  in  them,  and  was  fortunate  enough, 
to  get  a  few  rare  specimens  of  the  genus  unio. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

The  "Military  Road"— Eleven-Mile  Point  River— Obli- 
ging conduct  of  Widow  Newland — The  advantages  of 
"camping  out"— Our  front  and  hind  Wheels  quarrel; 
the  hind  Wheels  turn  back— Mr.  and  Mrs.  Meriwether 
— Two  suspicious  Travellers — Murder  of  Mr.  Childers — 
Extraordinary  Spectacle  produced  by  wild  Pigeons- 
Bury  the  remains  of  Mr.  Childers. 

FROM  this  place  we  were  happy  to  learn  that 
a  road  had  been  cut  out,  through  the  territory 


*  The  following  fact,  which  is  illustrative  of  the  econo- 
my of  nature,  may  bo  found  interesting  to  conchologists. 
Towirds  the  sources  of  those  streams  which  take  their  rise 
in  and  flow  exclusively  over  siliceous  minerals,  or  where 
calcareous  matter  is  comparatively  scarce,  I  found  that 
many  of  those  varieties  of  the  shells  belonging  to  the  genus 
Unio,  which  have  been  considered  by  some  zealous  conchol- 
ogists  as  distinct  species,  were  wanting,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  that  conformed  in  their  external  appearance  to 
those  simple  types  found  in  the  Schuylkill  of  Pennsylvania, 
the  Rappahannock  of  Virginia,  and  other  Atlantic  streams. 
But  where  the  streams,  after  leaving  the  siliceous  beds,  had 
penetrated  deeply  into  the  hills  amongst  the  calcareous  beds, 
or  had  risen  alm"st  amongst  the  calcareous  beds  at  the 
eastern  slopings  of  the  highlands,  as  some  of  them  do,  there 
numbers  of  those  beautiful  varieties  wanting  in  the  siliceous 
districts,  and  which  abound  in  the  Cumberland  and  Ohio 
Rivers,  were  always  found.  To  minds  not  indoctrinated  in 
the  mystery  of  specie  making,  it  appears  probable  that  the 
external  arrangement  of  a  testaceous  covering,  which  is  so 
much  relied  on  by  specie  makers  for  establishing  species  ia 
the  place  of  varieties,  may,  in  a  very  great  number  of  cases, 
be  due  to  the  presence  or  absence  of  calcareous  matter. 


86 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


of  Arkansas,  by  authority  of  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  called  the  "Military  Road." 
Entering  upon  it,  we  found  the  trees  had  been 
razed  close  to  the  ground,  and  that  the  road 
was  distinguished  hy  blazes  cut  into  some  of 
the  trees  standing  on  the  road-side,  so  that  it 
could  not  be  mistaken  ;  a  great  comfort  to  trav- 
ellers in  such  a  wilderness.  For  a  few  miles 
we  pursued  it  through  a  fine  bottom,  then  got 
upon  the  horizontal  limestone  we  had  seen  at 
the  Currant— which  is  prohably  the  equivalent 
of  that  at  Herculaneum — and  at  length  rose  to 
the  level  of  our  old  friend  the  calcareo-siliceous 
rock,  where  many  rocky  knolls  appeared,  alto- 
gether petro-siliceous.  Fourteen  miles •  from 
the  Currant  we  crossed  "  Fourche  de  Thomas," 
a  deep  fourche,  or  creek  in  the  forest,  but  pass- 
ing here  by  the  name  of  "  Fourche  de  Mas," 
according  to  the  French  method  of  abbreviation. 
We  passed  it  by  an  excellent  wooden  bridge 
constructed  in  the  best  style,  and  had  a  good 
view  of  the  ledges  of  horizontal  limestone  crop- 
ping out  on  the  bank,  which  a  little  farther  on 
we  found  was  overlaid  by  the  siliceous  rocks, 
that  soon  presented  nothing  but  quartz,  horn- 
stone,  chert,  and  opaque  and  agatized  flints. 
One  or  more  settlers  here  having  quarrelled 
about  the  direction  of  the  Military  Road,  have 
taken  the  liberty  to  cut  roads  resembling  it,  and 
blazed  the  trees,  to  their  own  cabins  ;  in  conse- 
quence of  this  we  got  out  of  our  way,  and  after 
driving  sixteen  miles,  reached  at  a  late  hour  a 
Mr.  Russel's,  who  moved  his  family  in  here  about 
twenty-four  years  ago,  among  the  earliest  Amer- 
icans who  came  to  the  territory  of  Arkansas. 
As  we  were  approaching  the  place,  we  saw  two 
wild-looking,  urchins  of  boys  trailing  a  beeve's 
head  through  the  woods  to  bait  a  wolf-trap  ;  that 
animal  abounding  about  here,  and  being  fre- 
quently caught  in  that  way. 

Last  night  we  had  the  pleasure  of  Mrs.  Har- 
ris's company  in  our  bed-room,  and  this  night, 
soon  after  we  had  retired,  old  Mrs.  Russel,  a 
discreet  matron  of  at  least  seventy,  accompanied 
by  a  sickly,  unhappy-looking  girl,  of,  perhaps, 
eighteen,  came  into  our  room,  where  there 
were  three  beds,  upon  one  of  which  I  was  laid 
down,  and  my  son  upon  the  other.  Without 
uttering  a  word,  these  amiable  ladies  very  de- 
liberately went  through  the  ceremony  of  un- 
robing and  getting  into  the  other  bed.  This  to 
be  sure  was  an  unexpected  treat ;  I  thought  my 
son  would  never  have  done  laughing,  and  cer- 
tainly I  never  saw  anything  done  with  more 
nonchalance. 

Pursuing  our  journey  the  next  morning,  we 
found  an  undulating  country,  the  horizontal  non- 
fossiliferous  limestone  always  in  the  valleys, 
and  the  siliceous  rocks  on  the  high  lands.  We 
found  no  fossils  here  ;  it  would  almost  seem  as 
if  the  waters  which  deposited  all  these  beds 
had  been  too  hot  to  admit  of  animal  life  exist- 
ing in  the  mineral  matter.  At  Eleven-mile 
Point  River,  another  beautifully  pellucid  stream 
about  130  yards  broad,  running  through  a  fer- 
tile bottom,  we  stopped  to  breakfast  upon  our 
own  provender,  in  a  sorry  hovel.  There  was 
no  man  to  attend  the  ferry,  and  we  were  obliged 
to  cross  the  stream  in  an  awkward  flat  boat 
conducted  by  a  girl  about  16  :  the  landing  was 
an  exceedingly  bad  one,  and  in  making  it  we 
barely  escaped  ruining  both  horse  and  carriage. 


The  country  from  hence  was  rough  and  hilly 
for  six  miles  to  Jackson,  a  wretched  place  which 
passes  for  the  county  town,  and  which  is  situa- 
ted— why  I  know  not — at  the  inconvenient  dis- 
tance of  a  mile  from  a  beautiful  transparent 
stream  called  Spring  River.  From  hence  we 
drove  fourteen  miles  over  a  country  somewhat 
less  hilly,  and  part  of  it  in  open  woods,  to  a 
widow  Newland's,  where  we  were  most  misera- 
bly provided  for,  and  shown  to  a  wretched  flock- 
bed,  neither  long  enough  nor  wide  enough  for 
two  to  lie  down  upon  ;  which,  perhaps,  was  the 
reason  why  the  good,  considerate  old  lady  did 
not  favour  us  with  her  company. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  gladly  started  again  ; 
we  had  passed  a  bad  night  and  got  nothing  to 
eat,  and  it  was  clear  we  should  have  fared  much 
better  if  from  the  first  we  had  relied  entirely 
upon  ourselves,  and  had  "  camped  out"  at  nights. 
We  could' have  purchased  meal  and  chickens  at 
some  of  the  farm-houses,  and  could  have  made 
a  hearty  repast  of  them  at  the  end  of  the  day. 
"Camping  out"  to  be  sure  is  not  always  as 
comfortable  as  sleeping  under  a  "roof,  having  in 
the  winter  season  many  disadvantages  ;  still 
even  then  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  its  favour, 
and  at  any  rate  you  don't  find  old  widows  every 
night  in  the  woods:  but  it  was  important  to 
consider  our  horse  ;  he  wanted  food  and  a  stable 
at  night,  and  we  were  obliged  to  seek  one  for 
him. 

Jogging  along  we  came  to  a  rather  deep  and 
dry  bayou,  with  a  very  steep  descent  down  into 
it,  and  this  part  of  the  business  we  achieved 
exceedingly  well  with  both  of  us  in  the  waggon  ; 
but  Missouri  being  rather  too  confident  made  a 
dash  to  get  up  the  opposite  bank,  and  my  son 
who  had  the  reins  aiding  him  lustily  with  the 
whip  to  get  out  of  the  bayou,  the  horse,  just  at 
the  edge  of  the  bank,  made  a  desperate  effort, 
and  successfully  carried  my  son,  the  shafts,  and 
the  front  wheels  for  some  short  distance  on  our 
route ;  as  to  myself,  I  philosophically  took  the 
part  of  the  hind  wheels,  which,  released  from 
all  restraint,  incontinently  retreated  back  again 
with  me  to  the  bottom  of  the  bayou.  It  would 
have  amused  a  third  person  to  have  observed 
us  when  we  met  again,  looking  at  each  other 
upon  the  occasion  of  so  melancholy  a  dismem- 
berment of  the  machine  that  we  so  much  de- 
pended upon.  But  our  discomfiture  was  so  pal- 
pable that  no  room  was  left  for  doubt  or  hesita- 
tion, and  we  came  instantly  to  the  conclusion 
that  all  other-business  must  give  place  to  wag- 
gon-mending :  so  setting  resolutely  to  work,  we 
dragged  the  hind  wheels  up  the  bank,  cut  some 
stout  stuff  to  splice  our  shafts,  that  were  broken, 
clean  from  the  axle-tree,  and  making  use  of  the 
ropes  that  we.  had  happily  furnished  ourselves 
with,  in  about  three  hours  we  got  under  way, 
though  in  such  a  crippled  state,  that  we  were 
now  obliged  to  walk,  a  punishment  too  light  for 
having  been  so  inconsiderate  as  to  sit.  in  the 
waggon  whilst  the  horse  was  drawing  it  out  of 
the  bayou.  Luckily  the  fore  and  hind  wheels 
kept  upon  tolerably  good  terms  during  the  rest 
of  the  day,  except  occasionally  when  we  were 
going  down  hill. 

We  were  now  on  rather  a  flattish  country  with 
open  woods,  and  flocks  of  parroqueets  scream- 
ing around  us.  Being  in  advance  about  a  mile, 
and  very  near  the  bank  of  Strawberry  River, 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


• 


87 


'I  heard  the  cry  of  a  wild  goose,  and  getting  a 
glimpse  of  him  through  the  bushes,  as  he  was 
trumpeting  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream,  I 
took  it  for  granted  he  was  calling  us  to  break- 
fast, and  firing  at  him  put  a  ball  into  his  neck 
close  to  his  head,. a  lucky  shot  that  1  could  not 
have  made  perhaps  once  in  twenty  times.     Ij 
immediately  rushed  through  a  ripple  of  the  river ! 
to  secure  my  prize,  and  seeing  a  cabin  not  far 
off  went  there  to  wait  for  my  son  and  inquire  if 
they  had  any  meal,  but  the  people  were  steeped 
in  poverty  and  broken  down  by  fever  and  ague. 
We  however  made  a  breakfast  of  what  we  had, 
and  were  too  glad  to  procure  a  feed  of  corn  for 
our  horse.     Before  leaving  the  place   I   went 
down  to  the  river  again,  and  collected  a  great 
many  unios  resembling  those  of  the  Cumber-  f 
land,  but  with  a  deeper  flesh-coloured  nacre  in- 
side.    After  breakfast  I  drove  the  horse,  my  j 
son  preferring  to  walk,  and  proceeding  through 
a  fertile  flat  country,  a  very  heavy  rain  set  in  ;  j 
the  old  saying,  that  it  never  rains  difficulties  j 
but  it  pours,  was  now  verified,  for  in  ascending 
a  hill  the  coupling  pin  of  the  fore  part  of  the  | 
carriage  came  out,  and  the  front  and  hinder  j 
•wheels  again  separated,  and  brought  us  to  a  I 
stand.     This  was  a  day  of  great  trouble  :  we  con-  \ 
trived,  however,  soaked  through  as  we  were,  to 
drag  our  waggon  on  with  various  luck,  and  in  the 
evening  took  shelter  at  a  settler's  called  Meri- 
wether. ten  miles  from  the  Strawberry. 

Mr.  Meriwetner's  log-cabin  was  at  the  top  of 
a  hill  a  short  distance  from  the  main-road  ;  he 
seemed  to  be  a  hearty  good-fellow,  for  he  as- 
sisted us  with  great  alacrity  to  get  our  things 
•out  of  the  rain,  and  to  take  care  of  our  poor 
horse,  who  was  very  much  jaded.  On  going 
into  the  bouse  we  were  made  acquainted  with 
a  person  he  called  Mrs.  Meriwether,  hut  who 
from  her  great  height,' which  was  six  feet  two 
inches,  an  extraordinary  dark,  bony,  hairy  face, 
and  trimmings  to  match,  I  should  have  taken 
for  some  South  American  grenadier  in  women's 
olothes.  Here,  seated  before  a  rousing  fire,  we 
soon  contrived  to  dry  ourselves,  and  with  the 
aid  of  some  of  their  milk,  corn  meal,  and  fried 
pork,  and  our  tea  and  sugar,  managed  to  make 
a  hearty  supper.  Our  appearance  was  the 
greatest  godsend  imaginable  to  these  worthy 
people  ;  they  were  two  of  the  greatest  talkers  I 
ever  heard,  had  not  seen  any  travellers  for  a 
long  time,  and  now  a  fine  opportunity  occurred 
of  delivering  everything  they  had  to  say.  The 
only  great  difficulty  they  laboured  under  was, 
lhat  both  wanted  to  talk  at  the  same  time. 
When  Mr.  Meriwether  had  fairly  entered  upon 
one  of  his  yarns,  she  would  cut  in  upon  him 
•with  "Well,  but,  John,  I've  heer'n  that  so  often 
now  ;"  upon  which  he  would  say,  "  Jist  give  me 
a  chance  to  git  through,  and  I  swar  you  shall 
have  a  chance  too ;  ride  and  tie,  you  know, 
that's  fair." 

Our  host  said  that  he  had  been  once  a  soldier, 
.and  that  he  wag  a  relative  of  Captain  Meri- 
wether Lewis,  the  associate  of  the  venerable 
Captain  Clarke  of  St.  Louis,  in  the  exploration 
of  the  country  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  that  he  was  with  Captain  Lewis  when  he 
destroyed  himself  in  Tennessee.  He  told  me 
that  he  had  led  an  adventurous  and  merry  life, 
had  not  laid  up  a  dollar,  and  was  one  of  the 
earliest  settlers  in  Arkansas,  where  he  got  along 


as  well  as  he  could  by  hunting,  and  trading,  and 
raising  a  patch  of  corn.  He  said  that  the  track 
by  which  we  had  come  to  his  cabin  from  the 
main-road,  was  part  of  the  ancient  Indian  path 
or  trail  from  Vincennes  on  the  Wabash  to 
Nachitoches  in  Mexico,  and  had  been  adopted 
as  the  general  road  by  white  people  moving  in 
that  direction.  This  was  the  reason  why  so 
many  desperate  men  from  all  quarters,  Span- 
iards, Frenchmen,  Americans,  and  other  out- 
laws, had  settled  near  it,  and  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  deserted  cabins  we  had  seen  had 
been  inhabited  by  them.  There,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  entertaining  travellers,  they  got  them 
into  their  cabins,  and  often  murdered  them  if 
they  had  anything  to  be  plundered  of. 

Whilst  he  was  thus  entertaining  us  his  dogs 
began  to  bark,  and  going  to  the  door  he  found  a 
tall,  thin,  pale  young  man,  with  a  dirty  blanket 
coat  on,  and  a  rifle  in  his  hand,  who  asked  if  he 
could  get  any  milk  and  bread.  He  was  very  re- 
luctant to  enter  the  house,  but  at  length  came 
in,  and  certainly  his  appearance  was  very  for- 
lorn. His  story  was,  that  himself  and  a  com- 
panion, with  the  intention  of  hunting  a  few 
hours,  had  separated  from  the  waggons,  bound 
from  Illinois  to  Texas,  in  which  their  relatives 
were,  and  that  they  had  never  been  able  to  find 
them  again.  This  happened  three  weeks  ago 
after  leaving  St.  Louis.  Herculaneum  was  the 
only  place  he  could  name  as  one  which  they 
had  passed  through,  but  of  the  names  of  the 
rivers  and  creeks  he  did  not  remember  one. 
Upon  asking  where  his  companion  was,  he  said 
he  had  left  him  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  Our  host 
gave  him  a  small  quantity  of  sweet  potatoes ; 
and  upon  his  saying  that  they  had  no  money, 
I  gave  him  half  a  dollar  to  pay  their  ferry  over 
White  River,  which  was  not  far  off.  When  he 
was  gone,  old  Meriwether  and  his  wife  thought 
the  story  a  very  unsatisfactory  one ;  they  could 
not  conceive  how  they  could  have  crossed  the 
St.  Francis,  the  Currant,  and  Strawberry  rivers, 
without  hearing  their  names,  and  therefore  pro- 
nounced them  to  be  a  couple  of  vagabonds,  who 
had  seen  us  on  the  road,  and  were  now  dogging 
us  with  evil  intentions.  -  I  was  not  quite  con- 
vinced of  this,  but  listened  willingly  to  the  ad- 
vice of  our  host  to  us  to  be  vigilant.  He  said 
that  although  there  were  a  great  many  respect- 
able settlers  in  the  country  now,  yet  there  was 
"  a  heap  of  villains"  in  it ;  and  mentioned  a 
place  on  the  Mississippi,  called  Helena,  which 
was  in  the  territory  of  Arkansas,  where  all  sorts 
of  "negur  runners,"  counterfeiters,"  "horse- 
stealers,"  "  murderers,  and  sich  like,"  took  shel- 
ter "agin  the  law."  Nothing  was  easier,  he 
said,  than  for  two  fellows  that  were  good  marks- 
men to  pick  off,  with  their  rifles,  two  travellers 
like  us  when  we  were  not  thinking  of  it.  These 
monitions  he  followed  with  a  relation  of  the 
story  of  a  Mr.  Guilders,  which  was  harrowing 
enough. 

This  person,  it  appears,  was  an  old  bachelor, 
and  a  man  of  some  property ;  a  few  years  ago, 
being  on  a  journey,  he  slept  at  a  man's  on  the 
I  south  side  of  White  River,  whose  name  was 
i  Couch,  and  pursuing  his  journey  the  next  morn- 
l  ing,  was  dogged  to  within  two  miles  of  Meri- 
i  wether's  cabin,  and  murdered  when  he  was 
i  asleep  at  his  bivouac  ;  "  and  theie  the  old  man's 
i  bones  are  to  this  day,"  said  Meriwether.  I  ex- 


TRAVELS    IN   AMKRICA. 


pressed  here  in  strong  terms  my  surprise  to 
him,  that  knowing  these  things  he  had  not  given 
the  remains  a  decent  burial.  He  replied  that  he 
had  often  thought  of  it,  but  had  never  done  it. 

The  hour  of  rest  being  come,  we  were  shown 
to  a  part  of  the  cabin  which  was  quite  out  of 
repair,  and  where  the  weather  came  in  freely 
enough,  for  it  rained  in  torrents  the  whole  night. 
We  were,  however,  alone,  and  did  not  neglect 
our  host's  advice  to  be  vigilant.  The  appear- 
ance of  Mr.,  and  especially  of  Mrs.  Meriwether, 
would  have  done  credit  to  any  melodrama;  that 
of  the  pale-faced  young  fellow  was  quite  in 
keeping,  and  these  stories  of  outlaws,  murders, 
and  especially  the  admitted  fact  that  the  re- 
mains df  a  murdered  man  were  yet  unburied  in 
the  neighbourhood,  all  made  me  thoughtful  and 
careful  too.  I  had  heard  of  Helena  when  in 
Tennessee ;  it  had  been  described  to  me  as  a 
sink  of  crime  and  infamy,  and  we  were  now  not 
far  from  it.  Placing,  therefore,  our  trunks 
against  the  door,  we  prepared  ourselves  as  well 
as  we  could  for  any  emergency  before  we  laid 
down  to  sleep ;  but  daylight  broke  with  a  clear 
sky,  and  on  going  into  the  kitchen  we  found 
our  two  hosts  just  as  talkative  and  obliging  as 
ever.  I  therefore  soon  got  over  my  suspicions  ; 
and  finding  that  Meriwether  was  not  only  able 
but  willing  to  mend  our  waggon,  I  restored  him 
entirely  to  my  good  opinion. 

A  new  and  very  interesting  spectacle  now 
presented  itself,  in  the  incredible  quantities  o: 
wild  pigeons  that  were  abroad ;  flocks  of  them 
many  miles  long  came  across  the  country,  one 
flight  succeeding  to  another,  obscuring  the  day- 
liglit,  and  in  their  swift  motion  creating  a  wind, 
and  producing  a  rushing  and  startling  sound, 
that  cataracts  of  the  first  class  might  be  proud 
of.  These  flights  of  wild  pigeons  constitute 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  phenomena  of  the 
western  country.  I  remember  once,  when 
amongst  the  Indians,  seeing  the  woods  loaded 
from  top  to  bottom  with  their  nests  for  a  great 
number  of  miles,  the  heaviest  branches  of  the 
trees  broken  and  fallen  to  the  ground,  which  was 
strewed  with  young  birds  dead  and  alive,  that 
the  Indians  in  great  numbers  were  picking  up  to 
carry  away  with  their  horses :  many  of  their 
dogs  were  said  to  be  gone  mad  with  feeding  upon 
their  putrefied  remains.  A  forest  thus  loaded 
and  half  destroyed  with  these  birds,  presents  an 
extraordinary  spectacle  which  cannot  be  rival- 
led ;  but  when  such  myriads  of  timid  birds  as 
the  wild  pigeon  are  on  the  wing,  often  wheeling 
and  performing  evolutions  almost  as  complicated 
as  pyrotechnic  movements,  and  creating  whirl- 
winds as  they  move,  they  present  an  image  of 
the  most  fearful  power.  Our  horse,  Missouri,  at 
such  times,  has  been  so  cowed  by  them,  that 
he  would  stand  still  and  tremble  in  his  harness, 
whilst  we  ourselves  were  glad  when  their  flight 
was  directed  from  us. 

Whilst  Meriwether  was  assisting  my  son  to 
repair  our  waggon,  I  went,  under  the  guidance 
of  a  little  boy,  the  only  one  of  their  children 
who  had  survived  the  effects  of  the  malaria,  and 
who  was  recovering  from  a  broken  arm  that 
had  been  badly  set,  to  look  for  the  remains  of 
Mr.  Chil  lers.  We  found  the  place  where  he 
had  been  murdered,  and  after  a  very  long  search 
amidst  the  dead  leaves  and  rubbish,  which  a 
little  stream  called  the  Curie  had  carried  there, 


and  near  to  which  we  had  bivouacked,  we  at 
length  found  a  sort  of  heap  of  what  appeared  to- 
be  soil,  and  taking  some  of  the  earthy  matter  in 
my  hands,  I  perceived  a  rank  smell  of  putrefac- 
tion Removing  the  heap  with  a'  spade  I  had 
brought,  I  found  what  remained  of  the  skeleton^ 
two  shoulder  blades,  two  thigh  bones,  two  leg 
bones,  and  one  arm  bone.  The  rest  had  prob- 
ably been  carried  away  either  by  the  wild  beasts 
or  by  the  stream  at  some  time  of  high  flood. 
Having  collected  all  the  remains  I  could  find,  I 
dug  a  grave  on  the  spot  where  he  had  been  sleep- 
ing when  he  was  slain,  and  there  deposited  them, 
in  their  proper  order,  thus  rescuing  them,  as  far 
as  I  could,  from  further  dishonour.  I  then  placed 
a  stone  over  the  grave,  and  having  charged  my 
little  assistant  to  take  care  of  it,  and  to  put  the 
other  bones  in  it  if  he  should  find  them,  I  gave 
him  a  dollar  to  encourage  him,  and  returned  to 
the  cabin. 

Mr.  Meriwether  informed  me  that  in  the  hills 
about  this  part  of  the  country  there  is  a  surpris- 
ing quantity  of  micaceous  oxide  of  iron — of 
which  I  had  shown  him  specimens  ;  and  1  found, 
from  his  conversation,  that  the  River  St.  Fran- 
cis, which  empties  into  the  Mississippi,  and  the 
Big  Black,  which  empties  into  White  River,  are 
very  much  choked  up  with  rafts,  the  which  if 
they  were  cut  out  and  the  country  drained, 
several  millions  of  acres  of  rich  bottom  land 
would  be  reclaimed.  There  is  galena  also  in 
this  part  of  the  country;  a  mine  of  which  has 
been  opened  somewhere  up  the  Strawberry 
River. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Description  of  White  Rivei»-Judge  Tucker's  Cabin;  his 
account  of  the  Murder  of  Childers — Account  of  the  first 
Judge  Lynch,  and  the  state  of  Legal  Practice  in  his 
Court — A  successful  Speculation  in  Lead — Clock  Ped- 
lars insinuaiing  Persons— White  River  Mountain— A 
Ruffian  of  the  first  order. 

HAVING   repaired  our  waggon,  we  bade  our 
entertainers  good  bye,  and  proceeded  through  a 
pretty  undulating  country  to  the  settlement  of  a 
Mr.  Tunstall,  an  enterprising  person  of  this  dis- 
trict, who  lives  in  a  tolerable  house,  built  on  a 
well-chosen  and  pleasant  situation.     Here  I  saw 
a  fine  field  of  wheat.     But  Mr.  Tunstall  being 
from  home,  we  drove  on  towards  White  River, 
through  a  tolerable  road  in  sandy  barrens,  with 
trees  far  apart.     A  great  change  in  the  climate 
was   here   obvious :    the  trees,   whose   leaves 
were  all  dead  and  had  fallen  when  we  left  St. 
Louis,  were  here  green,  as  well  as  the  shrubs ; 
and  various  species  of  oak  began  to  appear  that 
we  had  not  seen  before.    As   we   proceeded 
through  these  barrens,  I  got  a  glimpse  of  the 
man  in  the  dirty  blanket  coat  who  hac!  called  at 
Vferiwether's  last  night ;  but  as  he  disappeared 
almost  immediately.  I  thought  it  was  possible 
hat  he  and  his  companion  might  have  dodged 
behind   some  trees  which  appeared  very  thick 
some  distance  before  us.     Although  I  did  not 
fully  partake  of  the  prejudices  of  Meriwether 
tgainst  these  men,  who  really  might  be  honestly 
pursuing  their  way  to  Texas,  yet  I  thought  it 
)rudent  that  we  should  be  on  our  guard  ;  for  the 
lace,  being   a    wilderness,  without   a   human 
jeing  to  hear  testimony  to  any  thing,  or  to  re- 
;eive  assistance  from,  was  very  opportune  to 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


do  us  mischief.     We  accordingly  concerted  our  I  season   the   stream   was  low,  but  exceedingly 
plan.     My  son  was  to  remain  in  the  waggon, '  pellucid,  and  there  was  a  great  margin  of  beach 


coming  slowly  along,  and  if  he  was  attacked 
was  to  abandon  the  waggon  if  necessary,  and 
come  to  close  quarters  with  the  axe ;  whilst 
was  to  enter  the  woods  quietly  in  advance  o 
my  son,  but  always  sufficiently  near  to  him,  and 
rifle  in  hand,  was  to  turn  and  discover  their 
flank,  and  act  accordingly,  if  I  saw  symptoms 
of  treachery. 

The  strange  conduct  of  the  man  we  had 
spoken  with,  the  unwillingness  of  the  other  to 
show  himself,  the  fact  of  their  not  having  slept 
at  a  house  Meriwether  had  directed  them  to 
(which  we  had  ascertained),  Mr.  Meriwether's 
raw  head  and  bloody-bone  stories,  and  the  bury- 
ing of  the  bones,  had  rather  disposed  me  to  be 
wary  and  uneasy ;  but  after  advancing  a  con- 
siderable distance  with  great  caution,  and  ex- 
amining all  the  trees  on  both  sides  of  the  road 
without  seeing  any  one,  I  rejoined  my  son.  A 
couple  of  miles  farther  on  we  saw  them  to- 
gether ;  and  hearing  our  wheels,  the  unknown 
fellow  turned  to  look  at  us,  and  spoke  to  the 
other,  who  did  not  turn  round,  which  we  con- 
strued unfavourably,  perhaps  putting  a  wrong 
construction  upon  everything  they  did,  as  I  ob- 
served at  the  time.  I  now  determined  to  get 
before  these  fellows,  and  putting  the  horse  on 
at  his  best  pace,  with  our  rifles  prepared,  we 
came  up  to  them  and  accosted  them.  Each  had 
a  gun  ready  cocked.  The  unknown  fellow  hung 
down  his  head  ;  but  putting  a  close  question  to 
him,  he  raised  it  to  answer  me,  and  I  must  say 
that  a  more  hang-gallows-looking  phiz  I  never 
saw.  We  now  pushed  on,  my  son  driving, 
whilst  I  kept  my  face  turned  to  the  men,  but 
they  made  no  movement  of  an  extraordinary 
character ;  and  soon  afterwards,  the  sun  being 
set,  we  entered  the  ample  alluvial  bottom  of  the 
valley  of  White  River,  and  having  traversed  a 
canehrake,  drove  to  the  ferry. 

This  stream,  which  is  very  little  known  be- 
yond the  precincts  of  the  territory  of  Arkansas, 
is  one  of  the  most  important  and  beautiful  rivers 
of  North  America.  It  takes  its  rise  in  the 
western  edge  of  that  elevated  country  which 
has  obtained  the  name  of  Ozark*  Mountains, 
and  receives  several  important  tributaries,  some 
of  which  take  their  rise  north  of  37°  of  N.  lat., 
draining  that  charming  portion  of  the  territory 
of  Arkansas  which  is  comprehended  in  the 
county  of  Washington  ;  and  pursuing  a  general 
easterly  course  to  its  principal  tributary,  Big 
Black  River,  it  leaves,  near  that  stream,  the 
petro-siliceous  highlands  to  the  north,  and  then, 
after  a  serpentine  course  of  from  seven  to  eight 
hundred  miles,  deflects,  to  the  south  in  34°  N. 
lat.,  to  increase  the  volume  of  the  Mississippi. 
The  latter  portion  of  its  course  lies  through 
alluvial  lands  of  the  most  fertile  quality,  through 
which  it  is  navigable  from  its  mouth  up  to 
Batesville,  a  distance  of  350  miles  from  the 
Mississippi :  and  with  little  improvement  could 
— it  is  said — be  made  so  200  miles  farther  to 
the  westward.  The  valley  of  White  River, 
where  we  crossed  it,  divides  the  petro-siliceous 
highlands  into  two  portions ;  and  the  river, 
when  full,  is  about  200  yards  wide.  At  this 


*  A  con  up  ion  of 
ofauz  Arkansas. 


mx  dres,  the  French  abbreviation 
M 


on  each  side. 

At  the  ferry  we  were  told  we  could  obtain 
"  first-rate  accommodation"  at  a  Judge  Tucker's,, 
a  magistrate  who  lived  a  mile  farther  on  the 
road. 

Comforting  ourselves  with  this  prospect,  and 
forgetting  that  "  first-rate,"  in  a  ferryman's 
mouth,  might  be  a  qualification  only  squaring 
with  his  own  taste,  we  hastened  on,  and,  to  our 
great  mortification,  found  the  Judge  living  ia 
one  of  the  most  dirty  and  unprovided  holes  we 
had  yet  got  into,  in  addition  to  which  his  chil- 
dren and  himself  too  were  just  recovering  from 
the  malaria.  I  pitied  them,  for,  bred  up  in  dirt, 
it  was  evident  they  knew  not  what  cleanliness 
meant ;  he  himself  seemed  poor  and  broken- 
spirited,  but  was  civil  and  communicative.  It 
turned  out  that  he  was  the  magistrate  who  had 
to  inquire  into  the  murder  of  Childers,  the  cir- 
cumstances of  which,  as  we  learned  them  from, 
him,  were  as  follows  : — It  was  known  that  this 
unfortunate  man  had  lodged  at  Couch's,  and 
that  Couch  was  under  particular  obligations  to 
him.  Many  weeks  after  his  departure  from  this 
man's,  a  boy  going  through  a  cane-brake  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Couch's  house,  saw,  as  he 
thought,  a  bear  lying  down  in  the  brake,  and 
fired  at  it :  believing  he  had  killed  it,  he  walked 
up  and  found  upon  examination  that  it  was  a 
bundle  of  clothes  tied  up,  and  apparently  hid 
away.  Upon  opening  it  he  found  a  great-coat 
that  he  remembered  Mr.  Childers  to  have  worn, 
together  with  other  things,  and  taking  the  bun- 
dle to  Squire  Tucker — our  host — he,  without 
oss  of  time,  communicated  the  fact  to  some  of 
his  friends.  After  some  deliberation  they  came 
to  the  unanimous  opinion  that  Childers  had  been 
murdered  by  Couch  whilst  sleeping  in  his  house, 
and  that  the  bundle,  which  contained  nothing 
jut  what  had  belonged  to  the  unfortunate  man, 
:iad  been  secreted  by  him. 

Proceeding,  therefore,  to  his  residence,  they 
nfoftned  him  of  the  bundle  having  been  found, 
and  charged  him  with  the  murder  of  his  guest. 
He  stoutly  denied  the  charge,  and  professed  his 
gnorance  of  the  manner  in  which  the  bundle 
sad  got  to  the  cane-brake,  admitting  at  the 
same  time  that  he  remembered  seeing  the 
clothes  in  the  possession  of  Childers.  As  the 
man  persisted  with  great  energy  in  this  decla- 
ration, and  they  had  no  collateral  evidence  of 
any  kind  to  support  their  charge,  except  the 
mportant  circumstance  that  Childers  had  slept 
n  his  house  the  last  time  he  had  been  seen, 
.hey  thought  it  expedient  to  submit  the  case  to 
.he  highest  legal  authority  then  existing  in  that 
part  of  Arkansas. 

This  was  a  very  awful  personage  named 
fudge  Lynch,  whose  unrivalled  ability  in  the 
cience  of  cross-questioning  had  often  thrown 
ight  upon  the  most  obscure  cases.  This  talent 
ic  had  inherited  from  a  famous  Virginian  an- 
cestor of  his,  who  lived  when  the  back  settle- 
ments of  that  colony  were  also  in  that  happy 
state  of  Cocagna  which  flourishes  for  a  while 
n  every  region  that  is  invaded  by  the  advanc- 
ng  population,  and  where  every  man,  being 
without  restraint,  does  as  he  pleases,  untess  a 
tronger  man  interferes.  This  ancestor,  the 
first  Judge  Lynch,  was  a  miller  and  a  justice  of 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


the  peace  in  the  hack  woods ;  he  had  heen  there 
from  his  youth,  before  the  western  counties  of 
Virginia  were  organized,  was  a  man  of  expe- 
rience and  sagacity,  and  was  acquainted  with 
everything  that  was  passing  around  him.  When 
a  "  spree"  of  a  desperate  kind  occurred,  and 
the  atrocity  that  had  heen  committed  had  made  it 
necessary  for  the  many  to  combine  against  a  sus- 
pected individual,  the  first  step  was  to  appre- 
hend and  take  him  before  the  Judge,  where  all 
the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  the  proofs 
to  support  the  charge,  were  entered  into. 

If  his  Honour  saw  that  the  evidence  was  not 
strong  enough  to  send  him  to  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment with  any  hope  of  conviction,  and  that 
all  the  trouble  and  expense  would  go  for  no- 
thing, besides  giving  a  triumph  to  the  accused 
party  in  treating  him  to  a  sight  of  the  great 
world,  and  letting  him  come  back  whitewashed 
into  the  bargain,— he  used  to  say,  "  Gentlemen, 
I  swar  this  won't  work  no  haw,  fix  it  haw  you 
will ;  and  I  reckon  the  shortest  way  is  to  git  it 
out  of  him  with  the  kayw  hide."  The  party 
•was  now  stripped  to  the  skin,  and  tied  securely, 
•with  his  face  and  breast  close  to  a  tree,  so  as 
to  exhibit  the  best  possible  view  of  his  dorsal 
proportions.  Two  stout  fellows,  armed  with 
knotted  thongs  made  from  a  tough  hide,  were 
then  appointed  to  keep  the  flies  from  his  upper 
and  lower  parts,  and  the  Judge  stood  by  to 
direct  operations.  His  invariable  rule  was  to 
order  the  administration  of  twenty  smart  strokes 
of  the  thongs  before  "axing  no  questions;" 
this  he  said  "  somehaw  stirred  the  man  up,  and 
put  up  him  upon  thinking  they  were  in  arnest." 
Now,  although  the  Judge  was  regarded  as  a 
consistent  person,  and  always  ordered  neither 
more  ncr  less  than  twenty  strokes  to  be  given, 
yet  it  somehow  always  struck  the  party  most 
interested  in  counting  them  that  he  got  forty 
instead  of  twenty,  a  discrimination  which  per- 
ihaps  escaped  the  Judge,  who  might  have  ima- 
gined—the practice  being  to  apply  twenty  to 
the  shoulders,  and  twenty  somewhat  lower 
down  —  that  the  suffering  component*  parts 
•would  each  keep  the  arithmetical  account,  and 
not  the  entire  man.  It  certainly  had  the  effect 
•of  producing  a  perfect  conviction  that  they  were 
•"  in  arnest,"  accompanied  with  a  correspond- 
ing strain  of  piteous  entreaty  to  stop.  His 
Honour  would  then  mercifully  ask  him  "haw 
many  more  would  you  like  to  have  before 
you've  made  up  your  mind,  for  thar's  a  heap 
a-coming,  I  tell  you."  But  the  more  the  poor 
devil  prayed  them  to  believe  he  was  innocent, 
and  to  cease  tormenting  him,  the  more  they 
seemed  disposed  to  believe  him  guilty,  and  to 
increase  his  tortures  :  if  the  Judge  benevolently 
ordered  him  ten  strokes,  the  recipient— such  is 
the  discrepancy  between  theory  and  practice — 
knew  very  well  that  they  would  come  to  twenty, 
and  so  in  proportion  at  every  renewal  of  his 
flagellation. 

Now  as  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  crime  to 
seek  a  present  apparent  advantage  at  the  risk 
of  bringing  down  a  future  terrible  evil,  so  a  de- 
ferred death  loses  its  terrors  with  individuals 
drawn  from  the  lowest  classes,  when  compared 
with  present  sufferings  that  appear  intermina- 
ble, and  thus  the  unfortunate  devils  under  Lynch 
law  sooner  or  later  generally  said,  in  answer 
to  the  Judge's  kind  inquiry — which  interroga- 


tory he  called  cross  questioning — "  haw  many 
more  do  you  reckon  you  can  stand  nowV 
"  Why,  Judge,  sartin  no  man  alive  can  stand 
this  long."  "  Then,  gentlemen,"  the  Judge 
would  tenderly  say,  "  jist  give  him  three  leelel 
wales  to  help  ;it  out  of  the  hopper,"  alluding  to 
the  grain  that  sometimes  stuck  fast  in  the  hop- 
per of  his  mill,  which  he  thus  facetiously  com- 
pared to  the  confession  that  seemed  to  stick  in 
the  man's  throat.  A  confession  was  generally 
the  result,  and  thus  the  sagacity  and  summary 
process  of  Judge  Lynch  raised  his  name  to  the 
pinnacle  of  fame,  and  to  this  day  makes  Lynch 
law  the  terror  of  those  evil  doers  who,  in  those 
countries  where  there  is  no  other  law,  would 
be  without  the  fear  of  anything  to  control  their 
actions. 

In  this  manner  the  tavern-keeper  Couch  was 
tied  to  a  tree,  and  submitted  to  the  searching 
cross-questions  of  Judge  Lynch  ;  but  as  my  in- 
formant— who  was  present — told  me,  he  did  not 
stand  it  long,  confessing  that  a  man  «f  the  name 
of  Allen  had  met  with  Childers  at  his  house, 
and  finding  that  he  had  some  money  with  him 
and  two  fine  young  horses,  had  dogged  him  the 
next  day.  Two  days  afterwards  he  said  Allen 
came  in  the  night  to  his  house  on  the  horse 
Childers  had  rode,  leading  the  other,  and  bring- 
ing with  him  the  plunder  he  had  got ;  upon 
occasion  he  communicated  to  Couch  that  he 
came  upon  Childers  when  he  was  asleep,  and 
knocked  him  on  the  head  with  a  stake  he  bad 
cut,  when  Childers  sprung  on  his  legs  and  had 
a  hard  struggle  with  him  ;  but  that  having 
thrown  him  down  he  at  length  despatched  him, 
and  stripping  the  body  and  dragging  it  away 
some  distance  from  the  bivouac,  had  brought 
the  horses  and  things  away.  This  man,  Allen, 
he  said,  left  the  country  before  daylight  for 
Texas  with  the  horse  Childers  had  rode,  leaving 
the  other  horse  and  the  clothes  with  Couch, 
who  told  his  neighbours  that  he  had  purchased 
the  horse  of  Childers  before  he  left  his  house  ; 
and  as  to  the  clothes,  he  had  hid  them  in  the 
cane-brake.  Notwithstanding  this  story,  and 
his  strong  protestations  that  he  had  had  no  hand 
in  the  murder,  he  was  disbelieved,  and  having 
no  prison  they  put  him  in  a  cabin,  fastened  the 
door,  and  agreed  to  watch  him.  In  the  morn- 
ing the  cabin  was  found  empty ;  he  had  pur- 
chased his  liberty  no  doubt  of  his  guard  with 
poor  Childers's  money,  and  had  made  his  way 
to  that  asylum  of  oppressed  Republican  hu- 
manity, Texas  ;  for  some  time  afterwards  a 
person  returning  from  that  quarter  related  that 
he  had  seen  him  there  "  doing  uncommon  well." 
What  increases  the  disgusting  brutality  of  this 
transaction  is  the  fact  that  this  magistrate, 
Squire  Tucker,  or  Judge  as  they  call  him,  told 
me  that  he  and  a  coroner's  jury  went  to  Curie 
Creek,  where  they  found  and  identified  the 
corpse  of  the  murdered  man,  and  came  away 
without  burying  it. 

It  was  somewhat  curious  that  whilst  this 
story  was  relating  to  me,  the  same  tall,  pale- 
faced  young  fellow  who  had  called  at  Meri- 
wether's  the  preceding  evening,  just  when  he 
was  narrating  the  same  murder,  put  his  head 
in  at  the  door,  and  inquired  the  road.  Again  he 
declined  coming  in  when  invited,  saying  he 
had  no  time  ;  his  companion,  as  upon  the  pre- 
vious occasion,  never  appeared  ;  and  although 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


91 


Tucker  told  him  that  there  was  no  other  place 
or  house  to  get  shelter  at  for  the  night,  he  went 
away.  We  did  not  like  this  proceeding  ;  these 
fellows  would  now  be  ahead  of  us  again,  and 
Tucker,  on  being  told  of  the  circumstances  .un- 
der which  we  had  seen  him  before,  pronounced 
him  a  bad  fellow. 

In  the  morning  of  November  12th  we  started 
very  early,  and  after  some  time  passed  the  fire 
where  these  fellows  had  stayed  during  the  night, 
and  saw  their  lairs  where  they  had  laid  down 
upon  the  leaves.  We  were  now  entering  a 
country  full  of  thickets,  where  an  ambush  might 
be  laid  at  every  step.  I  adopted  the  plan  of  the 
preceding  day,  walking  on  before,  believing  it  to 
be  most  prudent  not  to  expose  both  our  persons 
at  the  same  point ;  it  was  probable  that  if  they 
had  bad  intentions  they  would  be  somewhat 
embarrassed  at  seeing  only  one  person  in  the 
carriage  when  they  expected  to  see  two  ;  at  any 
rate  I  thought  that  being  in  advance  I  should 
get  the  first  intimation  of  their  intentions,  and 
act  more  prudently  than  a  younger  man  would  ; 
besides,  I  wished  to  give  my  son  the  best  chance 
possible.  How  it  occurred  I  know  not,  for  we 
saw  no  bye-road  by  which  they  could  have 
turned  down,  but  we  never  overtook  them, 
though  a  great  part  of  the  morning  we  came  to 
a  more  open  part  of  the  country,  which  ena- 
bled us  to  push  on  our  horse  ahead  of  them 
again.  The  movements  of  these  men  were 
certainly  rather  mysterious,  for  whilst  we  were 
boiling  our  kettle  at  a  poor  cabin  on  the  road, 
the  man  who  lived  there  told  us  that  one  of 
these  fellows  had  called  to  ask  if  we  had  pass- 
ed, whilst  the  other  went  into  the  woods  on  ap- 
proaching the  cabin,  and  had  taken  a  circuitous 
course  to  avoid  it. 

For  some  time  we  had  seen  no  rocks,  but 
here  we  came  upon  compact  blue  limestone, 
furrowed  at  the  edges  like  that  we  had  seen  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Sparta,  in  Tennessee,  and 
on  our  journey  through  Kentucky,  running  N.E. 
and  S.W.  on  the  same  strike  with  those  more 
northerly  beds.  Soon  after  this  we  reached  a 
settler's  of  the  name  of  Morton,  who  had  things 
rather  more  inviting  about  him  than  we  had 
seen  for  some  time ;  so  finding  that  we  could 
get  good  bread  and  milk,  and  fried  venison — 
which  is  tolerably  fat  at  this  season — we  stop- 
ped to  feed  our  horse  and  boil  our  kettle  again. 
When  we  came  to  pay  our  bill  the  charge  was 
a  lit,  or  the  eighth  of  a  dollar,  a  little  more 
than  sixpence  for  both  of  us  ;  but  we  found  a 
difficulty  in  paying  this,  for  the  smallest  coin 
we  had  was  half  a  dollar,  and  Mr.  Morton 
had  no  coin  whatever  in  the  house.  He  was 
•very  fair,  however,  and  said  he  didn't  mind,  but 
.that  he  was  out  of  lead,  and  if  my  son  had  a 
mind  to  give  him  a  small  bar  of  lead  he  had 
taken  out  of  his  pocket  and  placed  on  the  table, 
he  would  be  glad  to  have  it,  as  he  thought  it 
was  worth  a  bit.  My  son  had  purchased  four 
of  these  small  bars  at  Mine  la  Motte  to  cast 
balls  for  his  rifle,  and  not  being  able  to  do  any 
better  we  gave  him  the  bar,  with  which  he  was 
heartily  delighted,  saying  it  would  be  worth  "  a 
heap"  of  deer  skins  to  him.  This  was  our 
trading  debut,  and  upon  the  whole  was  an  affair 
that  was  creditable  to  us  in  a  commercial  point 
,of  view,  for  my  son  had  paid  only  a  bit  for  the 
-whole  four  bars,  so  that  here  was  a  magnificent 
return  of  300  per  cent  profit. 


Being  exceedingly  tickled  with  having  Jewed 
our  host  so  satisfactorily  in  this  business  trans- 
action, before  we  went  away  we  generously- 
made  him  a  present  of  another  bar  on  the  part 
of  Missouri,  and  thus  became  entitled  to  the 
respectable  appellation  of  traders,  which  had 
been  deemed  to  belong  to  us  on  various  occa- 
sions ;  for  the  rear  part  of  our  vehicle  being  oc- 
cupied by  a  large  basket  containing  our  cooking 
utensils  and  munitions  de  bouche,  attracted  gen- 
eral attention  when  we  passed  the  cabins,  which 
were  all  accustomed  to  be  supplied  by  travelling 
"  marchants."  Wherever  we  came  the  inquiry 
was  sure  to  be,  "  What  goods  have  you  got  to 
selll"  and  when  we  assured  them  that  we  had 
nothing  at  all  to  sell,  the  disappointed  women 
would  cry  out,  "  Why,  what  onder  arth  are  you, 
if  you  ain't  pedlars  V  Upon  one  occasion  a 
woman  screamed  out  most  lustily  to  us  from 
her  door,  and  as  we  would  not  stop  she  ran  af- 
ter us,  and  finding  we  obstinately  persisted  in 
giving  an  unsatisfactory  account  of  ourselves, 
she  said,  "  Well,  then,  if  you  ha'ant  got  nothin 
to  sell,  I  reckon  you  must  be  tailors,  and  that 
you  are  going  about  tailoring  ;''  and  I  fancy  we 
could  have  got  a  very  good  job  if  either  of  us 
had  been  put  in  the  way  of  cultivating  the  sar- 
torial bump. 

These  worthy  people  think,  if  you  are  not 
looking  for  land  to  settle,  that  you  must  be  ped- 
lars: there  are  no  maikets  or  shopkeepers  in 
the  country  for  them  to  go  to,  and  therefore  the 
markets  come  to  them— pedlars  to  sell  goods, 
and  tailors  to  cut  out  and  make  their  new 
clothes.  As  to  the  Yankee  clock  pedlars,  they 
are  everywhere,  and  have  contrived,  by  an  as- 
surance and  perseverance  that  have  been  unri- 
valled from  the  Maccabees  down,  to  stick  up  a 
clock  in  every  cabin  in  the  western  country. 
Wherever  we  have  been,  in  Kentucky,  in  Indi- 
ana, in  Illinois,  in  Missouri,  and  here  in  every 
dell  of  Arkansas,  and  in  cabins  where  there  was 
not  a  chair  to  sit  on,  there  was  sure  to  be  a 
Connecticut  clock.  The  clock  pedlar  is  an  ir- 
resistible person ;  he  enters  a  log  cabin,  gets 
familiarly  acquainted  with  its  inmates  in  the 
shortest  imaginable  time,  and  then  comes  on 
business. 

"  I  guess  I  shall  have  to  sell  you  a  clock  be- 
fore I  go." 

"  I  expect  a  clock's  of  no  use  here  ;  besides,  I 
ha'n't  got  no  money  to  pay  for  one." 

"  Oh,  a  clock's  "fine  company  here  in  the 
woods  ;  why  you  couldn't  live  without  one  after 
you'd  had  one  awhile,  and  you  can  pay  for  it 
some  other  time." 

"  I  calculate  you'll  find  I  ain't  a  going  to  take 
one." 

The  wife  must  now  be  acted  upon. 

"  Well,  mistress,  your  husband  won't  take  a 
clock  ;  it  is  most  a  surprising  :  he  hadn't  ought 
to  let  you  go  without  one.  Why,  every  one  of 
your  neighbours  is  a  going  to  git  one.  I  sup- 
pose, however,  you've  no  objection  to  my  nailing 
one  up  here,  till  I  come  hack  in  a  month  or  so. 
I'm  sure  you'll  take  care  of  it,  and  I  shall  charge 
you  nothing  for  the  use  of  it  at  any  rate." 

No  reasonable  objection,  of  course,  can  be 
made  to  this.  It  is  nailed  up  ;  he  instructs  her 
how  to  keep  it  in  order,  and  takes  leave.  But 
what  can  equal  their  delight,  when,  with  a 
bright,  clear  sound,  it  strikes  the  hours  !  "Well," 


TRAVELS    IN    AMERICA. 


they  exclaim,  "if  that  don't  beat  all !  Sartin, 
it  is  most  delightful,  curious  company  !"  The 
wife  now  teaches  her  husband  to  wind  up  the 
clock,  and  great  care  is  taken  of  it,  as  it  is  a 
deposit,  and  must  be  restored  in  as  good  condi- 
tion as  it  was  received.  Too  soon,  Jonathan, 
the  wily  tempter,  returns,  talks  of  taking  the 
clock  down  :  "  it  was  the  best  clock  he  ever 
had,  they  are  such  nice  people  he  almost  wishes 
it  was  theirs."  Such  a  friendly  and  disinterest- 
ed proceeding  throws  down  all  the  icy  barriers 
that  prudence  had  raised  between  them  and  the 
shrewd  Yankee.  Before  morning  the  wife  gets 
the  husband's  consent,  and  the  clock  becomes 
theirs  for  the  mere  formality  of  his  giving  a 
note,  payable  in  six  months,  for  some  eighteen 
or  twenty  dollars,  and  then 

"  If  the  clock  shouldn't  go  well  he  can  change 
it  for  another,  to  be  sure  he  can ;  ha'n't  he  got 
to  come  that  way  in  the  spring  1" 

He  comes  sure  enough  to  dun  the  poor  crea- 
tures, bringing  one  clock  along  with  him  ;  and 
as  all  the  clocks  have  stopped,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  either  because  they  were  good  for  nothing, 
or  because  they  have  wound  them  np  too  often,  he 
changes  the  clock  at  every  place  he  stops,  cob- 
bling them  up  in  succession  as  they  come  into  his 
hands,  and  favouring  every  one  of  his  customers 
with  the  bad  clock  of  his  neighbour.  The  de- 
nouement is  not  a  very  pleasant  one  ;  long  after 
the  clocks  have  ceased  to  strike,  the  constables 
come  and  wind  up  the  whole  concern,  and  mis- 
tress pays  too  often  with  her  cows  for  the  in- 
considerate use  of  her  conjugal  influence. 

Having  made  our  successful  trade  with  our 
host,  we  pursued  our  journey,  and  soon  began 
to  ascend  what  is  called  the  White  River 
Mountain,  across  which  a  very  extraordinary 
road  has  been  made.  The  person  who  laid  out 
the  Military  Road,  instead  of  winding  round 
this  desperate  ascent,  has,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  the  ancient  Roman  roads  in  England, 
taken  the  shortest  line  to  get  to  the  top,  and 
carried  it  up  at  about  an  angle  of  60°.  Our 
horse,  therefore,  came  to  a  dead  standstill,  and 
could  scarcely  drag  the  light  waggon  up,  even 
after  we  had  taken  everything  out  of  it ;  a  not 
very  pleasant  operation,  because  we  were 
obliged,  with  great  labour,  to  carry  our  luggage 
up  ourselves  in  all  the  worst  places.  For  the 
distance  of  about  1500  yards,  the  track,  for  it 
does  not  deserve  the  name  of  a  road,  laid  over 
immense  blocks  and  fragments  of  siliceous  rock, 
and  in  the  efforts  the  horse  made  to  drag  the 
vehicle  over  them,  we  were  in  constant  expec- 
tation of  seeing  it  come  to  pieces.  At  the  top 
we  found  the  rocky  strata  thrown  out  of  their 
beds  in  immense  masses,  but  looking  around,  I 
observed  some  portions  yet  in  a  horizontal  po- 
sition. We  now  had  got  upon  a  table-land  of 
great  elevation,  and  went  on  for  ten  miles  in  a 
forest  of  oak  trees,  amidst  the  profoundest  soli- 
tude, not  even  a  bird  being  upon  the  wing. 
From  this  we  descended  to  a  settler's  named 
Caruthers,  who  has  got  into  a  warm,  fertile 
bottom,  near  some  of  the  head  waters  of  Little 
Red  River.  The  leaves  of  his  peach  trees  were 
still  green,  and  he  spoke  of  his  situation  as  be- 
ing very  favourable  to  fruit.  This  man  strong- 
ly advised  us  to  abandon  the  Military  Road, 
and  to  take  a  new  cut,  where  we  should  find  a 
level  road,  good  lodgings  at  a  Mr.  Hornby's,  and 


an  excellent  ford  :  he  said  the  Military  Road 
was  very  hilly,  and  the  ford  to  which  it  led 
rather  dangerous.  We  accordingly  followed 
his  advice,  and  after  a  tedious  drive,  passing  a 
deep  ravine  where  the  horizontal  sandstone 
was  well  exhibited,  reached  this  Hornby's  after 
night.  Here  we  found  abundant  reason  to  re- 
gret having  left  the  Military  Road,  and  discov- 
ered too  late  that  Caruthers,  having  an  under- 
standing with  Hornby,  had  purposely  misled  us. 
Hornby  was  a  squalid,  half  negro  looking,  pirat- 
ical ruffian  from  Louisiana,  living  in  a  wretched, 
lilthy  cabin,  with  a  wife  to  match,  and  a  Cali- 
ban-looking negress  and  her  two  children,  who 
were  his  slaves.  This  fellow  never  opened  his 
mouth  without  uttering  execrations  of  the  worst 
kind.  In  this  den,  which  had  only  one  beastly 
room,  we  were  obliged  to  stay,  and  suffer  the 
low  conversation  of  this  horrid  fellow.  Some 
bits  of  filthy  fried  pork,  and  a  detestable  bever- 
age they  were  pleased  to  call  coffee,  were  set 
on  a  broken,  dirty  table,  at  which,  by  the  light 
of  a  nasty  little  tin  lamp,  into  which  Madame 
Hornby,  after  helping  herself  to  the  pork,  poured 
some  of  its  grease,  we  all,  tutti  quanti,  sat  on 
two  lame  benches.  We  passed  a  most  disgust- 
ing night,  the  whole  party  lying  down  on  the 
floor ;  and,  from  the  appearance  of  every  thing 
around  me,  I  should  certainly,  if  I  had  been 
alone,  have  expected  an  attempt  on  my  life.  A 
place  better  fitted  for  the  nefarious  practices  of 
such  a  set  of  desperate-looking  human  beings  I 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Little  Bed  River — A  distressed  family  of  Emigrants — A 
new  kind  of  Grist-mill— Blnck  Wolves— A  wild  Amer- 
ican scene — Reach  the  Arkansas  River — A  Tavern  at 
Little  Rock. 

GREAT  was  our  satisfaction  when  day  broke 
and  gave  us  light  enough  to  harness  our  horse ; 
hurrying  away  as  quick  as  we  could,  we  drove 
through  a  lofty  cane-brake— that  reminded  me 
of  the  bundle  containing  Childers's  clothes — to 
Little  Red  River — over  which  I  had  to  wade  to 
find  out  the  ford.  The  bed  of  the  stream  is 
broad,  and  if  the  waters  had  been  high  we  could 
never  have  got  across  ;  as  it  was,  our  horse 
made  many  difficulties,  but  my  son  finally  coax- 
ed him  over.  This  was  a  lesson  to  us  never  to 
deviate  again  from  the  Military  Road,  for  there, 
at  least,  good  bridges  have  been  established 
over  the  worst  streams.  I  picked  up  a  few  fine 
unios  whilst  wading  across  the  river,  principal- 
ly the  same  varieties  which  inhabit  the  Cum- 
berland. Soon  after  we  crossed  the  river  we 
carne  to  a  very  had  bayou,  with  a  large,  danger- 
ous mud-hole  on  the  track,  and  here  we  had  to 
stop  and  collect  sufficient  timber  to  fill  it  before 
we  durst  venture  to  attempt  it,  which  we  did 
successfully  ;  and  continuing  on  for  eight  miles, 
we  came  to  the  cabin  of  a  settler  called  Morse, 
where  we  found  his  family,  eight  or  ten  in  num- 
ber, in  a  very  deplorable  situation  :  they  had 
emigrated  from  Tennessee  in  the  month  of  May 
last,  and  had  been  ever  since  so  completely 
prostrated  by  the  malaria,  that  at  one  time  there 
was  not,  during  two  whole  days,  a  single  indi- 
vidual of  them  able  even  to  draw  water  for  the 
family.  A  more  sickly,  unhappy  set  of  crea- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


93 


tares  I  never  beheld  ;  livid,  emaciated,  helpless,  i 
and  all  of  them  suffering  extreme  pains  and  I 
nausea  from  an  excessive  use  of  calomel :  on 
the  floor  were  laid  the  faiher  and  five  of  the 
children,  still  confined  to  their  beds  ;  but  the 
mother,  a  kind,  good-hearted  woman,  finding 
that  we  were  travellers,  and  were  without  any 
thing  to  eat,  ordered  one  of  the  boys,  who  was  I 
still  excessively  weak,  to  show  us  where  we  j 
could  get  some  Indian  corn,  and  how  we  could  ; 
pound  it  so  as  to  make  a  hoe  cake.  He  accord- 
ingly took  us  to  a  patch  of  maize,  which  was 
jet  standing,  and  having  provided  ourselves 
with  a  sufficient  number  of  ears,  we  began  the 
operation  of  pounding  it.  They  had  no  mill  of 
any  sort  to  go  to,  but  had  scooped  out  a  cavity 
in  the  stump  of  a  large  tree,  over  which  was  a 
•wooden  pestle,  eight  feet  long,  suspended  from 
a  curved  pole  16  feet  in  length,  with  a  heavy 
•weight  at  the  end  of  it.  A  cross  stick  was 
fixed  in  the  pestle,  about  two  feet  from  its 
base ;  so  putting  the  grains  of  maize  into  the 
-cavity,  and  laying  hold  of  the  cross  stick,  we 
pounded  away  with  this  primitive  contrivance 
until  we  thought  our  grist  was  fine  enough ; 
•when,  taking  it  to  kind  Mrs.  Morse,  she  made 
it  into  a  hoe  cake,  and  baked  it  before  the  fire. 
This,  with  the  important  aid  of  a  pitcher  of  good 
milk,  and  our  own  tea  and  sugar — for  we  had 
nothing  else  left — enabled  us  to  make  an  excel- 
lent breakfast. 

These  good  people,  who  were  half  broken 
hearted,  and  who  sighed  after  their  dear  native 
Tennessee,  as  the  Jews  are  said  to  have  done 
after  Jerusalem  would  not  receive  any  compen- 
sation until  I  forced  it  upon  them  ;  hut  when  I 
further  divided  my  remaining  tea  and  sugar  with 
her,  believing  that  it  would  refresh  their  pros- 
trated stomachs,  she  said,  with  tears  in  her 
eyes,  "  that  if  anything  would  set  her  old  man 
up  again,  it  would  be  that  nice  tea  ;"  and  that 
she  was  at  one  time  going  to  ask  me  if  they 
might  take  the  leaves  that  we  had  left,  "  but 
that  she  did  not  like  to  do  it."  So  strange  are 
the  vicissitudes  of  life  !  We  had  passed  the 
night  with  a  family  in  whose  favour  I  could  wil- 
lingly have  invoked  all  the  blessings  that  the 
stoutest  hemp  that  was  growing  could  confer, 
and  here,  when  we  little  dreamt  of  it,  we  had 
become  most  feelingly  interested  for  the  welfare 
of  their  nearest  neighbours  ;  such  an  impres- 
sion does  suffering  goodness  make  upon  the 
heart. 

From  hence,  passing  a  pretty  stream  called 
Brown's  Creek,  we  drove  through  a  tolerably 
level  country  with  a  lofty  sandstone  ridge  on 
our  right,  to  a  settler's  of  the  name  of  Stacey, 
about  14  miles  off;  there  was  a  fine  bear's  skin 
stretched  out  at  the  door,  and  the  skin  of  an 
extremely  large  black  wolf.  He  told  us,  that 
whilst  he  was  out  on  horseback  the  other  day, 
his  dog,  which  had  been  ranging  after  some 
game,  suddenly  came  back  in  great  haste,  chas- 
ed by  seven  wolves,  four  of  them  black  and  the 
rest  grey.  The  moment  they  saw  him  they 
turned  round  to  retreat,  but  the  dog,  encour- 
aged by  the  presence  of  his  master,  gave  chase 
to  the  wolves,  who  again  turned  round,  and 
came  within  shot  of  Stacey's  rifle,  which 
brought  one  of  them  down.  The  tail  of  this 
beast  was  extremely  long  and  black. 

We  slept  at  Stacey's,  and,  starting  early  in 


the  morning,  crossed  a  steep  ridge  to  a  bottom, 
where  we  found  a  cabin  belonging  to  one  Co- 
vey. As  we  were  passing  it,  I  observed  a  black 
girl  throw  a  wild  duck  into  the  road,  so  I  stopped 
and  asked  the  mistress  of  the  house,  who  was 
standing  at  the  door,  why  this  was  done.  She 
answered  me  that  they  "  never  ate  sich  truck, 
because  she  allowed  they  had  a  kind  of  smell." 
The  truth  is,  that  these  poor  people  kill  wild 
fowl  merely  for  their  feathers,  and  that  neither 
wild  ducks  nor  anything  else  please  them  as 
much  as  bad  fried  pork,  the  coarse  taste  for 
which  perhaps,  when  acquired,  makes  every 
other  kind  of  flesh  appear  insipid.  From 
hence  we  ascended  a  steep  hill  of  ferruginous 
sandstone,  after  a  heavy  pull  of  half  a  mile ; 
the  view  from  hence  was  extensive,  the  whole 
country  appearing  to  be  formed  into  ridges  run- 
ning east  and  west,  as  parallel  to  each  other  as 
those  of  the  Alleghanies.  Along  this  table- 
land we  found  a  tolerable  sandy  road,  through  a 
pleasant  open  wooded  country,  but  very  much 
burnt.  We  stopped  to  breakfast  at  Mr.  Walk- 
er's, a  man  who  was  pretty  well  to  do  in  the 
world  ;  he  seemed  to  have  an  industrious  fam- 
ily, and  we  left  the  house  very  wtll  satisfied. 
The  improvement  in  the  climate  was  constant 
as  we  advanced  to  the  south;  to-day  Fahren- 
heit showed  77°  in  the  shade.  From  Walker's, 
where  we  got  good  bread  and  milk,  our  horse 
had  a  rather  distressing  road  for  14  miles  ;  for 
the  first  three  miles  we  had  two  hills  to  pass, 
almost  as  bad  as  White  River  Mountain,  and  on 
reaching  the  top  of  the  second,  had  a  very  ex- 
tensive view  of  a  desert  wilderness  below  us, 
about  12  miles  broad,  perfectly  flat,  and  bounded 
by  a  lofty  ridge  running  east  and  west.  It  was 
an  excessively  hot  day  ;  in  vain  we  looked  for 
anything  that  indicated  a  settlement— we  could 
see  nothing  but  a  dense  jungle,  which,  as  we 
had  been  told,  contained  no  water,  except  a 
few  stagnant  pools  in  the  dry  bayous.  This 
was  one  of  the  most  striking  pictures  of  wild 
American  scenery  I  had  yet  seen  ;  there  was 
nothing  to  break  the  comprehensive  and  uniform 
character  of  this  woody  desert,  save  an  im- 
mense conflagration  that  was  raging  in  the  dis- 
tance, right  in  the  line  of  our  march,  covering 
an  immense  area  of  country,  and  from  which 
rose  a  tremendous  dense  column  of  smoke. 
This  desert,  and  the  general  aspect  of  the  land 
ridges,  seemed  to  portend  some  change  in  the 
geological  character  of  the  country. 

Into  this  plain  we  descended,  bent  upon  get- 
ting through  it  as  quickly  as  we  could,  for  we 
knew  the  danger  of  being  enveloped  in  a  confla- 
gration raging  in  a  thick  jungle  where  every- 
thing was  dry,  and  the  smoke  of  which  some- 
times destroys  even  animals  before  they  can 
save  themselves.  It  was  painfully  hot ;  we  suf- 
fered exceedingly  from  the  want  of  water,  and  . 
our  horse  was  in  such  distress,  that,  seeing  a 
little  pool  in  a  low  bayou  of  difficult  access,  we 
took  him  out  of  the  shafts,  and  cutting  a  pas- 
sage, got  him  down  with  some  difficulty,  where 
he  drank,  but  not  eagerly.  Despairing  of  find- 
ing anything  better,  we  determined  to  try  a  lit- 
tle of  it  with  some  brandy,  but  the  remains  ol 
dead  lizards,  and  other  disgusting  animals  in  the 
putrid  mass,  made  it  impossible,  and  we  there- 
fore for  the  first  time  took  each  of  us  a  mouth- 
ful of  brandy  alone,  which  refreshed  us  very 


94 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


much.  We  passed  through  a  great  number  of 
laurel  thickets  in  this  desert,  the  abode  no  doubt 
of  many  a  stout  paiither ;  but  it  being  in  the 
heat  of  the  day,  we  saw  none.  To  emerge  from 
this  place  we  had  to  ascend  another  ol  those 
sharp  ridges,  but  were  amply  repaid  by  the  deli- 
cious pure  air  we  found  at  the  top.  The  rocks 
were  now  becoming  highly  inclined,  the  sand- 
stone was  intermixed  with  narrow  seams  of 
quartz,  and  the  quartz  was  not  compact,  but 
consisted  of  bundles  of  imperfect  crystals 
closely  wedged  in  upon  each  other.  After  a 
most  fatguing  drive  of  seven  hours,  we  reached 
a  place  at  night  called  Great  Houses,  completely 
knocked  up  ;  here  we  got  something  to  eat,  but 
the  wolves  came  round  the  house  in  such  num- 
bers, and  howled  in  such  an  amusing  manner, 
that  we  again  turned  out  in  the  hope  we  should 
get  a  shot  at  them,  in  which  we  did  not  suc- 
ceed. The  road  from  Memphis  to  the  Indian 
Reservations,  on  the  branches  of  the  Arkansas, 
comes  in  here. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  started  again,  hav- 
ing eight  miles  before  us  to  Fmlay's/  In  this 
short  distance  we  crossed  four  severe  ridges, 
running  east  and  west ;  and  here  I  found  that 
the  opinion  I  had  formed  on  seeing  the  contour 
of  these  lulls  at  a  distance  was  correct,  that  we 
had  got  off  the  limestone,  and  were  upon  a 
quartzose  sandstone,  superincumbent  on  slate, 
which  appeared  from  many  circumstances  to  be 
the  equivalent  of  old  red  sandstone.  This  is  a 
poor  country,  badly  watered,  and  every  body  in 
it  sick  and  miserable.  At  Finlay's,  where  we 
got  some  breakfast,  all  were  ill ;  they  had  ex- 
pended everything  they  had  in  the  world  to  en- 
able them  to  reach  this  barren  region,  and  were 
now  pining  to  get  out  of  it,  without  possessing 
the  means  or  the  health  to  do  so.  The  barrens 
that  lie  betwixt  these  ridges  are  settled  by  the 
poorest  classes  of  Tennessee  emigrants  ;  the 
trees  ar§  stunted  oaks,  there  is  very  little  run- 
ning water,  and  consequently  game,  which  is  a 
great  help  to  the  settler  at  first,  is  scarce.  The 
next  eight  miles,  to  Kellog's  differed  little  from 
the  last:  we  had  to  cross  three  ridges  of  ferru- 
ginous sandstone,  with  seams  of  quartz  grow- 
ing into  broad  veins  ;  the  last  was  a  very  tough 
pull  for  us.  During  the  next  eight  miles  we 
found  the  country  in  a  shattered  state  ;  the  tops 
of  the  ridges,  as  well  as  their  flanks,  were 'cov- 
ered with  blocks  and  fragments  of  the  sand- 
stone, which  indeed  were  strewed  along  the 
whole  line  of  the  road.  The  strata  dipped  to 
the  south-east,  at  an  inclination  of  45°,  and 
quartzose  ferruginous  veins  ran  in  the  beds  in  a 
northeast  and  southwest  course. 

Evening  was  drawing  nigh,  when  we  came 
to  a  rich  black  alluvial  bottom,  upon  which,  the 
weather  having  been  dry  for  some  time,  we 
found  a  good  road.  I  was  well  aware  what  this 
bottom  indicated,  and  a  little  after  sunset  we 
came  upon  the  bank  of  the  far-famed  Arkansa. 
The  river  was  a  delightful  object  to  us ;  at 
length  we  saw  the  waters  gliding  along,  that 
rise  amidst  the  glens  and  valleys  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and,  to  our  great  satisfaction,  also 
beheld  the  town  of  Little  Rock  on-the  opposite 
side  of  the  river,  in  which  we  hoped  to  find  some 
repose  and  amusement  for  a  few  days,  before 
advancing  to  the  Mexican  frontier.  The  river 
was  unusually  low,  and  we  had  to  get  down  a 


very  precipitous  track  to  reach  the  team -boat* 
that  was  to  ferry  us  across.  On  board  of  this 
we  led  our  horse,  and  soon  reached  the  opposite 
bank,  where  the  ascent  was  so  very  abrupt  that 
it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  we  got  Mis- 
souri to  the  top. 

We  now  drove  to  a  tavern  kept  by  Major 
Peay,  hut  the  Major  could  not  take  us  in,  and 
from  thence  we  went  to  another  kept  by  a  per- 
son called  Colonel  Leech:  the  Colonel  made  up 
his  mind  to  take  us  in,  but  stated  that  he  could 
'not  by  no  manner  of  means"  give  us  a  bed- 
room to  ourselves.  He  could  give  us  two  beds 
in  a  room  where  two  other  gentlemen  slept,  and 
that  was  all  he  could  do.  Here  then  v.e  deter- 
mined to  stay  for  at  least  one  night  ;  and  having 
taken  a  cup  of  tea  with — O  prodigia  luxuries  re- 
rum  ! — some  heavy  dough  cakes  of  ickeaten 
flour,  and  looked  in  person  after  the  supper  and 
lodgings  of  Missouri,  we  retired  to  the  room 
which  we  could  not  exactly  call  ours.  It  was 
only  half  plastered,  the  door  would  not  shut,  and 
the  beds  were  dirty-looking  enough  ;  so  we  en- 
deavoured to  act  upon  our  friend  Nidelet's  rule, 
that  "  tout  est  bon  quand  il  n'y  a  pas  de  choix." 
Besides,  we  had  every  reason  to  be  grateful, 
and  to  be  more  than  contented  ;  we  had  already 
accomplished  a  journey  of  at  least  1800  miles  in 
safety,  and  were  in  fine  health  and  spirits  to  car- 
ry  us  through  what  remained.  Independent  of 
this,  we  had  scarcely  been  houses  before  a  cold 
steady  rain  came  on,  and  increased  to  a  storm, 
a  circumstance  that  would  have  embarrassed  us 
very  much,  and  would  have  made  it  difficult  for 
me  to  give  proper  attention  to  a  troublesome 
sore  throat  I  had  taken  in  picking  up  unios, 
wading  the  streams,  and  sleeping  in  wet  clothes. 
About  three  A.M.  the  two  gentlemen  who  shared 
our  apartment  with  us  came  to  bed.  Supposing 
us  to  be  asleep,  they  continued  talking  in  rather 
an  under  tone  /or  half  an  hour,  but  I  had  been 
awoke  by  their  entrance,  and  soon  found  that 
they  had  been  gambling  with  a  party  ;  and  in- 
deed it  was  evident  from  what  they  said,  that 
they  were  professional  gamblers  on  a  visit  to  this 
place  from  New  Orleans. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

State  of  Society  at  Little  Rock— Don  Jonathan— The  Rev. 
Mr.  Stevenson— Newspapers  versus  the  Bible— Gover- 
nor Pope  and  his  Lady — The  Laws  of  Honour  at  Little 
Rock—A  Duel  in  the  Dark— A  Bully  killed— A  College 
of  Faro  and  Rouge  et  Noir— Arkansas  Legislators— The 
Speaker  murders  a  member  in  the  body  of  the  House — 

I  WAS  so  fortunate  as  to  obtain  my  letters 
from  the  post-office  before  breakfast,  and  as  they 
all  contained  agreeable  information  my  satisfac- 
tion was  complete,  and  I  went  to  the  breakfast- 
table  in  high  spirits.  This  territoryt  of  Arkan- 
sas was  on  the  confines  of  theUnited  States  and 
of  Mexico,  and,  as  I  had  long  known,  was  the 


*  The  paddles  of  these  ferry-boats  are  put  in  motion  by 
horses. 

t  A  territory,  in  the  United  St'ttes,  is  an  extensive  dU- 
tricl  of  country,  the  population  of  which  is  not  numerous 
enough  to  justify  its  admission  into  the  Union  by  Congress 
as  a  Sovereign  State.  Until  Is  admission,  therefore,  it  re- 
mains under  the  protection  and  jurisdiction  of  the  Federal 
Government,  in  a  quasi  colonial  state,  the  governor  and 
judicial  officers  being  appointed  by  the  Pie*ident  of  the 
United  States. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


occasional  residence  of  many  timid  and  nervous 
persons,  against  whom  the  laws  of  these  res- 
pective countries  had  a  grudge.  Gentlemen,  who 
had  taken  the  liberty  to  imitate  the  signatures  of 
other  persons  ;  bankrupts,  who  were  not  dispos- 
ed to  be  plundered  by  their  creditors  ;  homicides, 
horsc-steulers,  and  gamblers,  all  admired  Arkan- 
sas on  account  of  the  very  gentle  and  tolerant 
state  of  public  opinion  which  prevailed  there  in 
regard  to  such  fundamental  points  as  religion, 
morals,  and  property.  Here,  flying  from  a  stor- 
my world  of  chicane  and  trouble,  they  found  re- 
pose from  the  terrors  it  inspired,  and  looked 
back  upon  it  somewhat  as  Dante's  storm-tossed 
mariner  did  upon  the  devouring  ocean  : — 
"  E  come  (juei,  che  con  Icna  afFannata, 
Uscito  fuor  del  peljigo  alia  riva 
Si  volge  a  1'  acqua  perigliosa,  e  guata."* 

Inferno,  Ciinto  Prinoo. 

Such  a  community  I  was  anxious  to  see,  as  well 
as  to  observe  the  form  society  had  taken  in  it ; 
more  especially  as  a  very  curious  movement 
was  now  going  on  from  this  very  territory  in  re- 
lation to  the  adjoining  province  of  Texas  in 
Mexico,  which,  being  somewhat  in  want  of  an 
enlightened  government,  seemed  preparing  to 
receive  one  from  those  persecuted  individuals 
who  had  shown  so  much  aversion  to  become 
the  victims  of  civilized  society. 

On  entering  the  breakfast- room  I  found  a  very 
motley  set  at  table,  and  took  my  seat  opposite  to  a 
dignified  looking  person  with  a  well-grown  set 
of  mustachios,  a  round-about  jacket,  with  other 
vestments  made  in  the  Spanish  fashion,  and  a 
profusion  of  showy  rings  on  his  fingers.  The 
gravity  of  his  deportment  was  quite  Spanish,  and 
being  informed  that  he  was  from  New  Spain,  I 
promised  myself  a  good  deal  of  pleasure  in  con- 
versing with  him  in  his  native  tongue  about  his 
own  country  :  but  after  bolting  what  was  before 
him  with  an  enviable  rapidity — a  talent  I  had 
never  before  observed  in  a  Spaniard — he  left  the 
room  ere  I  had  an  opportunity  of  speaking  to 
him.  During  the  day,  however,  as  I  was  stroll- 
ing round  the  place,  how  great  was  my  surprise 
at  seeing  Don  Bigotes  seated  on  a  shopboard 
close  to  a  window,  and  sewing  away  cross-legged 
in  a  most  approved  sartorial  fashion  !  This  led 
me  to  make  some  inquiries  about  him,  and  then 
I  learnt  that  he  had  arrived  in  Little  Rock  not 
long  before  from  Santa  Fe  in  Mexico,  on  a  fine 
barb  horse  with  a  showy  Spanish  saddle  and 
housings  ;  and  finding  that  wages  were  very  high 
in  Little  Rock,  he  had  declared  himself  to  be  a 
tailor  by  trade,  and  had  engaged  for  a  month  as 
a  journeyman.  This  certainly  was  an  odd  char- 
acter to  begin  with  in  Arkansas,  hut  my  amuse- 
ment was  infinitely  increased  afterwards  when 
my  s<m  informed  me  that  having  had  occasion 
to  want  the  assistance  of  an  artist  in  that  line, 
he  had  been  to  the  shop  where  the  Don  worked, 
had  had  some  conversation  with  him,  and  that 
notwithstanding  his  gravity,  his  mustachios,  and 
his  rings,  he  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
Connecticut  Yankee  of  tde  name  of  Patterson, 
who  htw/ng  occasion  to  leave  the  land  of  steady 
luibits,  had  straggled  to  New  Mexico,  where  he 
had  practised  his  art  successfully,  and  having 
made  a  little  speculation  in  his  barb — upon 


"  With  short  and  gx=pinp  lireath  the  anxious  wretch. 
'Sc-i|>'d  the  devmuing  wavus  :uid  gain'd  the  shore, 
Tunis  to  regard  the  turbulent  :ibyss." 


which  he  set  an  immense  price — had  got  so  far 
on  his  way  back  again  to  his  native  country. 
Such  is  the  plastic  nature  of  Jonathan,  his  in- 
domitable affection  for  the  almighty  dollar,  and 
his  enterprise  in  the  pursuit  of  it,  that  it  is  far 
from  beimg  impossible  that  there  are  lots  of  his 
brethren  at  this  time  in  the  interior  of  China, 
with  their  heads  shaved  and  long  pig-tails  be- 
hind them,  peddling  cuckoo  clocks  and  selling  > 
wooden  nutmegs. 

Before  I  left  the  room  one  of  the  gentlemen 
who  had  slept  in  our  apartment  came  in,  look- 
ing rather  frouzily ;  there  was  a  great  attempt 
at  finery  about  his  clothes,  and  a  tremendous 
red  beard  under  his  chin  :  it  was  impossible  not 
to  admire  him,  and  equally  so  not  to  see  that  in 
his  haste  to  come  down  before  everything  was 
devoured,  he  had  forgotten  to  wash  himself  and 
brush  his  hair.  The  voice  of  this  worthy  was 
precisely  like  that  of  Colonel  Smith  of  the  Brit- 
ish army,  whose  adventures  have  been  narrated ; 
and  the  exquisite  manner  in  which  he  drawled 
out  his  ungramrnatical  absurdities  left  no  room 
for  conjecture  as  to  his  real  character.  When 
I  asked  the  landlord  who  he  was,  he  told  me  he 
was  "a  sportsman,"  a  designation  by  which  all 
the  bloods  who  live  by  faro  and  rouge  et  noir 
are  known  in  Arkansas. 

I  was  obliged  to  remain  two  days  m  this 
house,  all  the  others  being  full  of  adventurers,, 
who  were  constantly  pouring  into  «Jthe  place. 
Decent  people,  I  was  told,  got  into  private  fami- 
lies ;  but,  although  we  applied  in  several  places,, 
we  could  find  nobody  disposed  to  receive  us: 
our  landlord.  Colonel  Leech,  who  perceived  that 
we  were  only  travelling  for  information,  was 
very  kind  and  obliging,  but  he  could  not  let  us 
have  a  private  room,  and  we  were,  therefore, 
very  uncomfortable,  walking  about  the  town, 
and  passing,  I  dare  say,  in  the  eyes  of  every 
body  for  adventurers.  At  length  we  heard  of  a 
clergyman  who  lived  on  the  skirts  of  the  town, 
and  sometimes  "  took  in  boarders,"  so  we  im- 
mediately hied  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Stevenson's.  It 
was  a  nice-looking  cottage  enough,  separated 
from  the  road  by  a  paling,  inside  of  which  was 
standing  a  somewhat  dried-up  looking  individual, 
in  a  seedy -looking,  light-coloured  jacket,  an  old 
hat  with  a  broken  rim  on  his  head,  only  one  eye  / 
in  that,  and  a  rifle  in  his  hand.  "  Pray,  sir," 
said  I,  touching  my  hat,  "  can  you  inform  me  if 
this  is  the  Reverend  Mr.  Stevenson's  1"  Upon 
which  he  immediately  said,  "  I  expect  I  am  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Stevenson !"  That  being  his 
opinion,  it  would  not  have  forwarded  my  pur- 
pose at  all  to  have  commenced  a  dispute  with, 
him  about  it,  so  we  immediately  entered  upon, 
business.  I  told  him  who  I  was,  what  my  pur- 
suits were,  that  we  had  got  mixed  up  with  very 
bad  society,  and  that  I  should  be  very  happy  to 
pay  any  thing  for  a  private  room  and  board  in, 
his  family.  Mr.  Stevenson  turned  out  to  be  a 
much  better  man  than  his  externals  indicated  : 
he  entered  into  my  situation,  presented  us  tfr 
Mrs.  Stevenson — who  had  two  remarkably  good 
eyes  in  her  head — and  who  not  only  assigned 
us  a  roomy  Bed-chamber,  which  we  lost  no  time 
in  taking  possession  of,  but  during  the  whole 
time  we  staid  in  her  house  was  uniformly  obli- 
ging to  us.  Mr.  Stevenson  had  been  one  of  the 
earliest  settlers  in  Arkansas,  had  travelled  in 
every  part  of  it,  and  had  occasionally  officiated 


96 


TRAVELS    IN   AMERICA. 


in  the  remote  parts  as  a  missionary  :  as  he  cul- 
tivated a  piece  of  land  somewhere  near  the 
town,  whenever  he  visited  it  he  was  in  the  hahit 
of  taking  his  rifle  with  him,  and  this  accounted 
for  my  having  seen  him  armed. 

At  the  supper-table  we  first  met  the  rest  of 
his  family,  which  consisted  of  several  small 
children,  three  other  boarders,  two  of  whom 
were  tradesmen  of  the  place,  and  a  very  intelli- 
gent person  from  Switzerland  of  the  name  of 
T .  This  gentleman's  conversation  inter- 
ested me  very  much,  and  when  I  had  become 
sufficiently  acquainted  with  him  to  learn  his 
history  and  adventures,  I  could  not  help  taking 
great  interest  in  his  welfare.  He  was  of  a  good 
family  in  Switzerland,  had  been  well  educated, 
and  had  been  officially  employed  in  one  of  the 
bureaux  of  the  national  government.  In  the 
revolution  that  overthrew  the  aristocratic  fami- 
lies, he  and  others  determined  to  abandon  their 
•country  and  found  a  colony  in  America.  Form- 
ing their  plans  upon  little  other  evidence  than 
•what  a  map  furnished  them,  they  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  most  desirable  situations 
were  to  he  found  betwixt  the  34th  and  35th  de- 
grees of  North  latitude,  and  Mr.  T and  a 

colleague  were  sent  to  explore  and  report.  They 
had  arrived  at  New  Orleans,  and  proceeded  from 
thence  immediately  into  the  interior  of  Arkan- 
sas, where  they  had  resided  for  several  months  ; 
here  their  fynds  became  exhausted,  andr  re- 
ceiving no  remittances  nor  communications  of 
any  sort  from  their  friends  at  home,  they  fell 
into  a  perfect  state  of  destitution,  and  led  a  most 
miserable  life  for  a  long  time  in  the  woods.  At 
length  they  separated,  each  to  provide  for  him- 
self, and  Mr.  T arriving  pennyless  at  Little 

Rock,  had  succeeded  in  getting  some  sort  of 
employment  in  the  Land  Office,  where  his  talent 
as  a  draughtsman  made  him  very  useful.  When 
I  met  him  he  was  half  broken-hearted,  longing 
to  return  to  his  native  country,  but  with  no 
prospect  before  him  of  ever  getting  out  of  Little 
Hock,  where  the  emoluments  of  his  daily  labour 
barely  sufficed  to  keep  him  alive. 

Having  thus  cast  anchor  for"  a  few  days  in  a 
•quiet  and  safe  harbour,  I  began  to  look  about 
me  and  collect  information.  The  town  of  Lit- 
tle Rock  receives  its  name  from  being  built  upon 
the  first  rock, — a  slate  which  underlies  the  sand- 
stone and  dips  S.E.  at  a  great  inclination — which 
juts  out  into  the  Arkansa,  in  coming  up  the  river 
from  its  mouth  in  the  Mississippi ;  it  is  tolera- 
bly well  laid  out,  has  a  few  brick  houses,  and  a 
greater  number  of  indifferently  built  wooden 
•ones,  generally  in  straggling  situations,  which 
admit  of  their  having  apiece  of  ground  attached 
to  them.  The  population  was  at  this  time  be- 
twixt 500  and  600  inhabitants,  a  great  propor- 
tion of  them  mechanics;  lawyers  and  doctors 
•without  number,  and  abundance  of  tradesmen 
going  by  the  name  of  merchants.  Americans 
of  a  certain  class,  to  whatever  distant  point  they 
go,  carry  the  passion  for  newspaper  reading 
with  them,  as  if  it  were  the  grand  end  of  educa- 
tion. A  town  in  England  with  a  population  of 
8000  souls  will  have  a  few  of  the  lower  classes 
who  do  not  know  how  to  read  at  all,  but  those 
who  are  not  of  the  educated  classes,  and  who 
do  read,  generally  apply  that  noble  art,  when 
proper  occasions  present  themselves,  to  reading 
the  Bible  and  religious  and  moral  books. 


Newspapers  are  too  expensive  for  the  poorer 
classes  in  England,  and  therefore  the  minds  of 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  them  are  not  distract- 
ed, enfeebled,  and  corrupted  by  cheap  newspa- 
pers ;  and  although  the  exceptions  are  painfully 
obvious,  still  it  is  true  that  there  is  not  a  passion 
in  England  for  reading  low  newspapers  as  there 
is  in  America.  Now  the  only  newspapers  that 
deserve  to  be  read  in  England  pay  a  great  tax 
to  the  government,  and  are  only  within  the 
reach  of  the  opulent  classes,  Jhose  who  are  at 
ease  in  their  circumstances,  and  men  of  busi- 
ness ;  but  these  being  conducted  by  men  of  ap- 
proved talents  and  fair  character,  reflect  to  the 
public  all  the  intelligence  that  the  inquiring  spi- 
rit of  a  great  nation  requires,  and  assist  to  keep 
down  corruption  rather  than  cherish  it.*  How 
could  a  town  of  8000  inhabitants  in  England 
support  a  newspaper  printed  in  the  place1? 
Where  would  its  useful  or  instructive  matter 
come  from?  Why,  from  those  quarters  which 
have  already  supplied  it  to  those  alone  who  want 
it.  If  such  a  town  had  a  newspaper  it  could  not 
be  supported,  and  therefore  it  remains  without 
one.  But  in  Little  Rock,  with  a  population  of 
600  people,  there  are  no  less  than  three  cheap 
newspapers,  which  are  not  read  but  devoured 
by  everybody ;  for  what  pleasure  can  be  equal 
to  that  which, — through  the  blessings  of  univer- 
sal suffrage, — those  free  and  enlightened  citi- 
zens called  the  "sovereign  people"  are  made 
partakers  of  once  a  day,  or  at  least  three  times 
a  week,  on  finding  that  the  political  party  which 
has  omitted  to  purchase  their  support  is  compo- 
sed of  scoundrels  and  liars,  and  men  who  want 
to  get  into  power  for  no  other  purpose  but  to 
ruin  their  country1!  It  seems  impossible  that 
there  should  be  any  time  or  inclination  for  Bible 
reading  where  this  kind  of  cheap  poison  gets 
into  the  minds  of  human  beings;  you  might  as 
well  expect  to  find  a  confirmed  Chinese  opium 
smoker  engaged  in  the  solution  of  the  problems 
of  Euclid.  In  this  part  of  the  country  it  has 
struck  me  as  the  worst  of  all  signs,  that  I  have 
never  seen  a  Bible  in  the  hands  of  any  indivi- 
dual, even  on  a  Sunday. 

I  have  not,  however,  been  in  every  body's 
house,  nor  would  I  infer  that  every  individual  in 
Little  Rock  is  to  be  included  in  this  irreligious 
category.  What  I  have  said  I  would  apply  ex- 
clusively to  what  are  called  the  "  sovereign  peo- 
ple," that  mass  which  it  is  the  business  and  in- 
terest of  political  demagogues  to  mislead  and 
debase,  for  the  purpose  of  directing  it — as  they 
have  too  successfully  done  in  many  parts  of  the 
United  States — against  the  virtuous  and  praise- 
worthy efforts  of  good  men  and  their  families  in 
every  part  of  this  extensive  government;  men. 
who  struggle  to  bring  their  country  back  to  the 
honourable  principles  that  illustrated  the  period 
of  George  Washington,  but  whose  long  struggle 
will  be  made  in  vain  until  the  evil  consequences 
of  universal  suffrage  present  themselves  in  such 
an  appalling  form,  that  the  people,  rendered  wise 
by  great  suffering  and  experience,  will  consent 
to  surrender  to  the  guidance  of  men  of  character 
and  property  that  governing  power  which  is  now 
both  cause  and  effect  of  their  blind  passions. 


*  The  "  National  Intellipenper"  of  the  City  of  Washing- 
ton well  deserves  the  high  character  it  has  everywhere 
acquired. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


97 


It  was  my  good  fortune  to  become  acquainted 
with  a  few  respectable  and  agreeable  individuals 
here.  Governor  Pope,  the  governor  of  the  ter- 
ritory, is  an  unaffected,  worthy  person  :  he  was 
once  a  conspicuous  politician  in  Kentucky,  and 
by  some  accident  has  lost  one  of  his  arms. 
This  gentleman  has  been  of  great  service  here 
in  various  ways,  especially  in  the  judicious  use 
he  has  made  of  the  funds  entrusted  to  him  by  the 
general  government  for  the  erection  of  a  legis- 
lative hall,  which  is  a  very  handsome  building, 
placed  in  an  advantageous  situation,  on  the  brink 
of  the  river,  and  one  of  the  neatest  public  build- 
ings I  have  seen  in  North  America.  The  Gov- 
ernor showed  it  to  me  with  great  exultation,  and 
I  complimented  him  sincerely  on  the  taste  he 
had  shown. 

He  lives  amongst  the  inhabitants  in  an  unpre- 
tending and  plain  manner,  encouraging  them  to 
use  no  ceremony  in  talking  to  him,  and  appear- 
ing to  me  to  carry  his  affability  and  familiarity 
•with  them  quite  as  far  as  it  was  expedient  to  do. 
Ceremony  and  circumlocution  seem  to  have 
found  no  resting-place  amongst  the  inhabitants 
of  Little  Rock  ;  if  they  have  anything  to  say  to 
you,  they  come  to  the  point  (pynt  as  they  pro- 
nounce it)  at  Once,  and  are  not  very  shy  of  their 
expletives.  Soon  after  my  arrival  I  went  to  call 
upon  his  Excellency  the  Governor,  and  being 
told  that  he  lived  in  a  small  house  in  a  particu- 
lar quarter  of  the  town,  I  went  in  that  direction, 
and  seeing  a  house  which  I  supposed  might  be 
the  one  I  was  in  search  of,  I  knocked  at  the 
door,  upon  which  an  odd-looking  man  enough 
came  to  me.  Not  knowing,  after  my  experience 
of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Stevenson,  what  might  be 
trumps  here,  I  touched  my  hat  and  said,  "  Will 
you  be  so  obliging  as  tell  me  whether  the  Gov- 
ernor is  in  the  house  1"  I  fancy  this  fellow  had 
never  lived  in  Belgrave-square,  for  his  answer 
was,  "  No,  I'm  —  if  he  is."  He  told  me,  howev- 
er, very  obligingly,  where  the  house  was,  and  at 
last  I  found  it,  and  knocking  with  my  knuckles 
against  the  door,  a  dame  came,  who,  as  I  found 
afterwards,  was  the  Governor's  lady.  She  was 
a  strange-looking  person  for  one  of  her  rank, 
and  I  had  been  so  tickled  with  the  last  answer 
I  got,  that  I  could  not  help  cherishing  the  hope 
that  she,  too,  would  say  something  very  extra- 
ordinary. With  the  most  winning  politeness, 
therefore,  I  inquired,  "  If  his  Excellency  the 
Governor  was  at  home?"  Upon  which,  with- 
out mincing  the  matter,  she  very  frankly  told 
me  that  "  he  was  gone  to  the  woods  to  hunt  for 
a  sow  and  pigs  belonging  to  her  that  were  miss- 
ing." Now  this  might  very  reasonably  happen 
to  a  territorial  governor  in  such  a  practical  way 
of  life  as  he  was,  and  still  be,  as  it  really  was, 
creditable  to  him.  Sows  and  pigs  will  stroll 
into  the  woods,  and  the  wolves  will  pick  them 
up  if  they  meet  with  them.  Mrs.  Pope  had  sent 
one  of  her  "  negurs"  to  the  woods  upon  a  pre- 
vious occasion,  and  the  fellow  had  neglected  his 
duty  and  gone  somewhere  else  ;  this  time,  there- 
fore, she  sent  the  Governor,  who,  being  a  man  of 
sense,  and  knowing  how  little  dependence  was 
to  be  placed  upon  his  "  negur,"  and  perhaps 
wanting  a  walk,  had  undertaken  the  task  of 
driving  piggies  home. 

Besides  the  Governor  there  were  other  agree- 
able persons  with  whom  I  became  acquainted ; 
a  Colonel  A*****,  a  clever  good-tempered  law- 


yer. .  Mr.  Woodruff,  the  editor  of  the  principal 
Gazette  of  the  place,  and  postmaster,  was  al- 
ways obliging,  and  is  one  of  the  most  indefatiga- 
bly  industrious  men  of  the  territory.  At  his 
store  we  used  to  call  to  hear  the  news  of  the 
day,  which  were  various  and  exciting  enough ; 
for,  with  some  honourable  exceptions,  perhaps 
there  never  such  another  population  assembled 
— broken  tradesman,  refugees  from  justice,  trav- 
elling gamblers,  and  some  young  bucks  and 
bloods,  who,  never  having  had  the  advantage  of 
good  examples  for  imitation,  had  set  up  a  stand- 
ard of  manners  consisting  of  everything  that 
was  extravagantly  and  outrageously  bad.  Quar- 
relling seemed  to  be  their  principal  occupation, 
and  these  puppies,  without  family,  education,  or 
refinement  of  any  kind,  were  continually  resort- 
ing to  what  they  called  the  "Laws  of  Honour," 
a  part  of  the  code  of  which,  in  Little  Rock,  is  to 
administer  justice  with  your  own  hand  the  first 
convenient  opportunity.  A  common  practice 
with  these  fellows  was  to  fire  at  each  other  with, 
a  rifle  across  the  street,  and  then  dodge  behind 
a  door:  every  day  groups  were  to  be  seen 
gathered  round  these  wordy  bullies,  who  were 
holding  knives  in  their  hands,  and  daring  each 
other  to  strike,  but  cherishing  the  secret  hope 
that  the  spectators  would  interfere.  At  one 
time  they  were  so  numerous  and  overbearing 
that  they  would  probably  have  overpowered  the 
town,  but  for  the  catastrophe  which  be'fel  one 
of  their  leaders,  and  checked  the  rest  for  awhile. 

Mr.  Woodruff,  like  most  of  the  postmasters, 
kept  a  store,  and  thither  these  desperadoes  used 
to  resort ;  but  it  became  so  great  a  nuisance  at 
last  as  to  be  intolerable,  and  being  a  firm  man 
he  determined  to  put  a  stop  to  it.  The  young 
fellow  in  question  dared  him  to  interfere,  threat- 
ened him  more  than  once,  and  coming  to  the 
store  one  evening  provoked  the  postmaster  so 
much  by  his  insolent  violence,  that  a  scuffle  en- 
sued, in  which  the  bully  got  a  mortal  wound. 
Mr.  Woodruff  described  the  scene  to  me,  and 
showed  me  the  place  where  he  fell,  but  said 
that  he  got  his  death  by  the  awkward  use  of  his 
own  weapon.  The  public  opinion  sided  with 
the  postmaster,  who  was  very  popular  at  the 
period  of  our  visit. 

One  of  the  most  respectable  inhabitants  told 
me,  that  he  did  not  suppose  there  were  twelve 
inhabitants  of  the  place  who  ever  went  into  the 
streets  without — from  some  motive  or  other- 
being  armed  with  pistols  or  large  hunting- 
knives  about  a  foot  long  and  an  inch  and  a  half 
broad,  originally  intended  to  skin  and  cut  up  an- 
imals, but  which  are  now  made  and  ornamented 

ith  great  care,  and  kept  exceedingly  sharp  for 
the  purpose  of  slashing  and  sticking  human  be- 
ings. These  formidable  instruments,  with  their 
sheaths  mounted  in  silver,  are  the  pride  of  an 
Arkansas  blood,  and  got  their  name  Of  Bowie 
knives*  from  a  conspicuous  person  of  this  fiery 
climate. 

A  large  brick  building  was  pointed  out  to  me 
that  had  been  erected  for  stores  and  ware- 


*  Some  of  these  bloods  are  fellows  of  great  animal 
courage,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  following  account  of 

i  affair  which  took  place  on  this  frontier,  and  which  is 

ken  from  a  published  account. 

A  specimen  of  the  very  first  water  came  on  horseback 
to  a  tavern,  and  entered  a  room  where  some  other  persons 
were  assembled.  Throwing  his  cloak  on  one  side,  the 
usual  pistols  and  Bowie  knife  appeared  ;  and  as  nobody 


TRAVELS   IN   AMERICA. 


houses,  but  the  owner  thinking  he  could  do  bet- 
ter by  applying  it  to  the  uses  of  a  more  steady 
line  of  business,  rented  the  large  store  on  the 
ground  floor  as  a  drinking  shop,  commonly 
called  here  a  "groggery  ;"  here  it  was  the  cus- 
tom of  the  bloods  to  convene  and  discuss  the 
last  quarrel,  and  to  tell  how  such  a  one  "  drew 
his  pistol,"  and  then  how  such  a  one  "  whipped 
out  his  knife  ;"  adjourning  when  they  had  drunk 
to  the  warehouse  up  stairs,  which  they  called 
"the  college,"  and  which  was  converted  into  a 
gambling  room  for  faro  and  rouge  et  noir.  I 
had  a  description  given  me  of  some  of  the 
scenes  that  took  place  here  by  persons  who 
were  present,  which  would  appear  incredible  to 
even  any  gamblers  who  were  not  familiar  with 
this  den  of  infamy.  To  this  place  it  was  the 
practice  to  inveigle  all  the  young  men  they 
could,  who  had  any  property  or  any  credit, 
make  them  mad  with  drink  (the  youth  of  these 
climes  become  frantic,  not  stupid,  with  the  fiery 
potations  they  use),  and  then  ruin  them  with 
the  most  atrocious  foul  play.  Out  of  this  class 
they  recruit  their  infamous  gang,  and  teach 
them  how  to  decoy  and  ruin  others.  When 
they  have  nobody  to  fleece,  they  play  amongst 
themselves — having  no  idea  of  any  other  mode 
of  occupying  the  time.  Many  stories  were  re- 
lated to  me  of  a  trader  at  the  mouth  of  White 
River,  named  Montgomery,  a  finished  sportsman 
in  every  sense,  passionately  fond  of  gambling, 
excessively  addicted  to  whiskey,  and  who  al- 
ways used  to  sit  down  to  the  faro  table  with  his 
Bowie  knife  unsheathed  by  his  side,  to  insure 
fair  play.  This  man,  with  some  others,  suc- 
ceeded in  effecting  the  ruin  of  a  promising  young 
officer  in  the  United  States  service,  a  Lieuten- 
ant   ,  who  was  an  acting  quarter-master. 

He  had  had  the  weakness  to  permit  himself  to 
become  acquainted  with  some  of  these  wretch- 
es, and  although  he  was  a  married  man,  and 
had  his  wife  with  him,  became  at  length  their 
familiar  companion.  Having  government  drafts 
in  his  possession,  they  contrived  to  defraud  him, 
when  drunk,  of  them,  to  the  amount  of  ten 


seemed  particularly  overjoyed  to  see  him,  he  soon  broke 
silence  by  looking  at  them  scornfully  and  saying,  "1  don't 
know  whether  you  are  the  very  beginning  of  men  or  not, 
but  I've  pot  3000  acres  of  prime  land,  two  sugar  planta- 
tions, 150  negurs,  and  I  reckon  I  can  chaw  up  the  best 
man  in  this  room  !" 

No  one  venturing  to  dispute  any  part  of  this  statement, 
he  proceeded  to  open  his  mind  a  little  further. 

"  I've  killed  eleven  Indians,  three  white  men,  and  seven 
painters ;  and  it's  my  candid  opinion  you-  are  all  a  set  of 
cowards !" 

Having  thus  unbosomed  himself,  he  observed  that  one 
of  the  company  kept  a  steady  eye  upon  him,  and  walking 
up  to  him,  jostled  him.  This,  as  he  found  out  after- 
wards, was  carrying  it  a  leetle  too  far,  for  the  person  he 
was  evidently  seeking  a  quarrel  with  was  a  doctor,  who 
had  gone  through  a  variety  of  adventures,  and  had  been 
on  the  " pynt  of  bursting  his  byler"  ever  since  this  wor- 
thy "  beg-in  to  carry  on."  The  doctor  immediately  rolled 
him  off.  when  out  came  the  Bowie  knife,  which,  but  for 
the  timely  interference  of  the  rest  of  the  company,  would 
have  been  lodged  in  the  doctor's  heart.  Now  came  mu- 
tual defiance,  and  an  instantaneous  agreement  to  "  ffeht 
it  out."  The  terms  proposed  by  the  intruding  swagperer 
were  rather  novel,  even  for  courts  of  honour  in  that  coun- 
try ;  but  the  doctor  was  not  a  flinching  man,  his  sienm 
was  up,  and  he  told  his  second  to  agree  to  anything  that 
was  fair  for  both.  There  was  a  room  in  the  house  totally 
dark,  into  which  not  a  cranny  of  light  came,  and  this  w  is 
fixed  upon  for  the  scene  of  the  mortal  combat.  The  par- 
ties were  now  each  stripped  to  the  skin,  excrpt  their  Wow- 
sers, their  arms  and  shoulders  well  greased  with  lard, 
and  a  brnce  of  loaded  pistols  and  a  Bowie  knife  given  to 
•ach.  Thus  were  they  put  into  the  dark  room,  with  the 


thousand  dollars.  Such  was  the  infatuation  of 
this  young  man,  that  finding  that  he  was  ruined 
for  ever  in  his  profession,  he  went  off  with 
Montgomery  and  a  party  of  the  sharpers  to  New 
Orleans,  to  get  the  drafts  cashed  that  he  had 
parted  with,  together  with  others  that  he  had 
still  left.  But  it  so  happened  that  an  active  of- 
ficer, who  was  acting  in  the  commissariat  ser- 
vice, heard  of  this  movement,  and  pushing- 
across  the  country,  reached  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi,  far  to  the  south  of  the  Arkansa  and 
White  River,  where  the  gamblers  were  to  em- 
bark. He  had  scarce  been  there  an  hour  when 
a  steamer  heaving  in  sight  he  went  on  board,. 
and  to  his  great  surprise  found  his  brother  of- 
ficer and  the  whole  gang  of  villains  on  the  deck. 
They  were  thus  frustrated  in  their  nefarious 
plans,  for  on  their  arrival  at  New  Orleans,  he 
immediately  stopped  the  payment  of  the  drafts,, 
and  the  party  returned  to  White  River,  where 
the  unhappy  victim  of  these  scoundrels  after- 
wards died  of  delirium  tremens. 

So  general  is  the  propensity  to  gambling  in 
this  territory,  that  a  very  respectable  person  as- 
sured me  he  had  seen  the  judges  of  their  high- 
est court  playing  publicly  at  faro,  at  some  races.. 
The  senators  and  members  of  the  territorial, 
legislature  do  the  same  thing ;  in  fact,  the  great- 
er part  of  these  men  get  elected  to  the  legisla- 
ture, not  to  assist  in  transacting  public  business, 
but  to  get  the  wages  they  are  entitled  to  per 
diem,  and  to  gratify  their  passion  for  gambling. 
A  traveller,  whom  I  met  with  at  Little  Rock, 
told  me  that  he  was  lodging  at  an  indifferent 
tavern  there,  and  had  been  put  into  a  room  with 
four  beds  in  it.  There  he  had  slept  quietly 
alone  two  nights,  when  on  the  third,  the  day  be- 
fore the  legislature  convened,  the  house  became 
suddenly  filled  with  senators  and  members, 
several  of  whom,  having  come  up  into  his  room 
with  their  saddlebags,  got  out  a  table,  ordered 
some  whiskey,  and  produced  cards  they  had> 
brought  with  them.  The  most  amusing  part 
of  the  incident  was  that  they  asked  him  to  lend 
them  five  dollars  until  they  could  get  some  of 


understanding  that  the  butchery  was  not  to  begin  before 
a  signal  was  made  by  the  seconds  outside.  For  near 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  after  the  signal  had  been  given,  the 
seconds  heard  no  noise  whatever,  and  were  disposed  to 
think  the  affair  would  end  as  it  began,  in  words,  when  sud- 
denly a  pistol  went  off,  and  then  another.  The  survivor  of 
this  .strange  duel  afterwards  stated,  that  scarce  a  tread  or 
a  breath  could  be  heard  in  the  room  after  they  had  cocked 
their  pistols :  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  for  nn  instant,, 
the  cat-eyes  of  his  antagonist  glistening,  but  they  changed 
their  place  so  quickly  that  he  was  uncertain,  and  did  not 
venture  to  fire.  At  length,  however,  he  fired,  and  re- 
ceived a  shot  instantly  in  return,  the  ball  of  which  lodged- 
in  his  shoulder.  Being  in  great  pain,  and  fearing  he 
should  faint,  he  fired  a  second  pistol,  when  instantly  he 
received  a  second  ball  in  the  fleshy  part  of  his  thigh. 
He  soon  became  very  faint  from  loss  of  blood,  and  after 
trying  in  vain  to  support  himself  against  the  wall,  fell 
on  the  floor.  Silently  and  slowly  the  other  now  ap- 
proached his  intended  victim,  with  the  knife  in  his  hand 
ready  to  despatch  him.  The  prostrate  man,  perceiving 
the  wary  character  of  his  adversary,  and  aware  of  his 
extreme  danger,  had  summoned  all  his  presence  of  mind  ; 
grasping  his  knife  firmly,  and  raising  himself  cautiously 
up  a  little,  he  listened,  but  could  hear  nothing  approach. 
Moving  his  upraised  arm  around,  he  endeavoured  to 
pierce  with  his  ey<*  into  the  darkness  that  enveloped  him, 
when  suddenly  he  saw  the  same  gray  eyes  glistening  in 
front  of  him,  and  striking  with  all  his  might,  he  plunged 
his  knife  through  his  incautious  assailant's  heart,  who  fell 
to  the  ground.  The  successful  duellist  now  called  out  to 
the  seconds  to  open  the  door,  and  entering  they  found  the 
doctor  weltering  in  his  blood,  but  still  holding  his  knife 
up  to  the  hilt  in  the  dead  man's  body. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


99 


their  legislative  "  wages."  Not  liking  this  pro- 
position very  much,  he  told  them  that  he  was  as 
hard  up  as  themselves.  They  therefore  pro- 
ceeded to  play  on  tick,  sat  up  almost  the  whole 
night  smoking,  spitting,  drinking,  swearing  and 
gambling;  and  at  about  five  in  the  morning  two 
of  them  threw  off  their  clothes,  and  came  to 
bed  to  him. 

JVote.— This  specimen  of  the  legislative  qualifications 
peculiar  to  such  a  state  of  society  ra-iy  appear  strange  to 
some  persons.  Those  philosophers,  however,  who  see  no 
mockery  in  giving  to  wild  colonial  communities  the  forms 
of  government  which  are  necessary  only  to  old  civilized 
countries,  may  learn  from  the  following  narrative,  which 
is  strictly  true,  how  the  dignity  of  representative  govern- 
ment is  exposed  to  be  outraged  nnd  degraded  by  the  animal 
man  before  religion  nnd  education  have  made  him  a  ra- 
tional being. 

In  the  month  of  December,  1837,  during  the  session  of 
the  Legislature  of  Arkansas  at  Little  Rock,  one  John 
Wilton  being  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  a 
bill  came  to  the  House  from  the  Senate,  called  the  Wolf 
Bill.  The  object  of  this  bill  was  to  give  a  bounty  for  the 
destruction  of  wolves;  and  it  provided  that  when  any  cit- 
izen went  before  a  justice  of  the  peace  in  a  particular  dis- 
trict with  the  scalp  of  a  wolf,  he  was  to  receive  a  certifi- 
cate of  the  fact,  which  was  to  entitle  him  to  a  pecuniary 
bounly  from  the  funds  of  the  territory.  By  many  persons 
this  bill  was  considered  to  be  a  job,  it  being  very  well 
known,  from  the  experience  of  previous  occasions,  that 
when  wolves  became  scarce  in  the  district  intended  to  be 
protected,  parties  would  go  out  of  the  territory,  even  into 
Texas,  to  hunt  for  them  ;  and  it  was  not  an  unusual  thing, 
when  wolves  were  "  uncommon  scarce,"  for  patriotic  in- 
dividuals to  cut  the  scalp  of  a  wolf  into  a  great  many  val- 
uable slips,  and,  fastening  a  slip  to  the  scalp  of  a  sheep,  a 
little  disguised,  and  holding  the  slip  between  their  fingers, 
to  take  a  solemn  oath  before  the  magistrate  that  this  was 
the  scalp  of  a  wolf,  and  that  it  was  killed  in  the  district 
designated  by  law  ;  an  oath  of  convenient  latitude;  for  the 
slip  held  on  by  was  part  of  the  scalp  of  n  wolf,  and  the 
rest  had  belonged  to  a  sheep  killed  in  the  district.  If  the 
justice  of  the  pence  was  an  obliging  person,  and  it  was 
made  worth  his  while  to  continue  so,  the  operation  was 
a  good  one,  and  such  a  bill  as  the  Wolf  Bill  was  sure 
therefore  to  have  a  great  many  friends. 

Having  passed  the  Senate,  the  bill  was  sent  to  the 
House,  where  a  party,  from  various  motives,  being  formed 
against  it,  it  was  assailed  by  all  sorts  of  ridicule.  It  had 
so  happened  that  another  job  law  had  been  passed,  called 
the  Re,U  Estate  Bank.  This  was  a  sort  of  bank  the  cnpi 
tal  of  which  was  to  consist  of  land,  and  enabled  those  en- 
terprising persons  who  had  interest  enough  to  become 
stockholders,  to  offer  land,  as  a  part  of  the  capital  of  the 
bank,  that  could  not  he  sold  for  a  penny  an  acre,  or  even 
sold  at  aJI,  with  as  much  success  as  those  that  held  lands 
of  a  good  quality,  and  that  were  convertible  in  the  mar 
ket,  always,  however,  provided  the  commissioners  ap- 
pointed to  scrutinise  into  the  title  and  quality  of  the  real 
estate  were  good-natured.  The  law,  for  this  reason,  be- 
came obnoxious  to  the  suspicion  of  being  a  job,  concocted 
for  the  purpose  of  enabling  these  ingenious  individuals  to 
convert  their  titles  for  land  into  evidences  of  bank  stock  • 
the  conversion  of  which  into  money,  even  at  only  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  of  its  nominal  value,  was  what  is  called  "'a 
splendid  operation."  Amongst  the  amendments  offered 
to  embarrass  the  passage  of  the  bill  was  one  proposed  by  a 
Major  Anthony,  that  the  "  signature  of  the  president  'of 
the  Real  Estate  Bunk  should  be  attached  to  the  certificnv; 
of  the  wolf  scalp."  At  this,  the  Honourable  Colonel  John 
Wilson,  the  Speaker,  t.K)k  fire ;  he  was  the  head  and  life 
and  soul  of  the  Real  Estate  Bank,  and  immediately  railed 
out  to  Anthony  to  ask  if  he  meant  to  be  personal,  who 
answered  that  he  did  not,  and  going  on  to  explain,  WHS 
ordered  to  sit  down.  Anthony  refused  to  take  his  seat 
saying  that  he  had  a  right  to  the  floor  for  the  purpose  of 
explaining.  But  the  Speaker,  thrusting  his  hand  into  h^ 
bosom,  drew  forth  a  huge  Bowie  knife,  and  brandishing  i! 
aloft,  cnlled  out,  with  a  voice  almost  inarticulate  with 
rage,  "  Sit  down,  or  I'll  make  you."  Anthony,  continuing 
to  keep  the  floor,  now  beheld  the  extraordinary  spectacle 
of  the  ofteer  appointed  to  keep  order  in  the  'House,  dc 
liberately  descending  from  the  Speaker's  chair,  his  right 
hand  wielding  a  glittering  blade,  nnd  keeping  an  eye  of 
fire  steadily  fixed  upon  him.  As  the  Speaker  advanced  j 
with  determination  inflexibly  imprinted  on  every  fenturn, 
Anthony  put  his  own  chair  a  little  on  one  side  stenpoi! 
back  a  few  paces,  and  drew  his  Bowie  knife  al«o.  Gudi- 
ing  up  the  chair  to  serve  as  a  shield  to  himself,  the  Speaker  ' 
rushed  upon  Anthony,  and  a  fight  now  began  betwixt 
"'em  over  the  chair,  Wilson  being  stabbed  in  each  arm  by  , 


his  adversary,  who  in  the  scuffle  lost  his  knife.  Anthony 
now  hastily  snatched  up  another  chair  to  defend  himself, 
but  the  Speaker,  perceiving  his  advantage,  pressed  upon 
im,  dashed  the  chair  up  with  his  left  hand,  and,  uncover- 
ng  Anthony's  breast,  deliberately  murdered  him,  by 
thrusting  his  knife  up  to  the  hilt  in  his  heart.  As  he 
withdrew  the  knife,  the  unfortunate  man,  without  uttering 
a  word,  fell  down  dead  on  the  floor,  in  the  presence  of  hia 
colleagues,  not  one  of  whom  had  interfered  to  stop  this 
trocious  carnage.  The  ruffian  Wilson,  having  perpetrated 
this  deed,  looked  at  his  knife,  and  wiping  the  blood  from 
it  with  his  thumb  and  finger,  retired  back  to  the  Speaker's 

The  proceedings  subsequent  to  this  murder  in  a  House 
of  Representatives  were  of  a  piece  with  the  foul  transac- 
tion. The  House  adjourned,  and  three  days  elapsed  be- 
fore any  of  the- constituted  authorities  took  any  notice  of 
it.  A  relative,  however,  of  the  murderer  having  asked 
for  a  warrant  for  Wilson's  apprehension,  a  legal  inquiry 
was  instituted,  to  which  he  came,  at  the  end  of  some 
days,  with  four  horses  harnessed  to  a  sort  of  carriage,  as 
suitable  to  the  dignity  of  the  Speaker,  and  accompanied  by 
numerous  friends.  All  the  circumstances  of  the  murder 
were  distinctly  proved,  and  although  the  public  prosecu- 
tor proposed  t»  adduce  a  particular  law  showing  that  it 
was  not  a  bailable  offence,  the  Court  refused  to  hear  him, 
and  admitted  the  murderer  to  bail.  Agreeably  to  his 
recognizance,  he  appeared  at  the  session  appointed  for  his 
trial,  when  a  motion  was  made  to  remove  the  trial  to  an- 
other county,  founded  upon  the  affidavit  of  Wilson  him- 
self and  two  of  his  friends,  one  of  whom  swore  that  "  from 
the  repeated  occurrence  of  similar  acts  within  the  last 
four  or  five  years  in  this  county  the  people  were  disposed 
to  act  rigidly,"  and  that  therefore  it  would  be  unsafe  for 
Wilson  to  be  tried  there.  The  Court,  upon  this,  removed 
the  cause  to  another  county,  and  ordered  the  murderer  to 
be  delivered  to  the  sheriff  of  that  county ;  a  mere  formality, 
for  no  restraint  whatever  was  laid  upon  him,  and  he  went 
wherever  he  pleased,  treating  people  at  the  dram-shops  to 
whatever  they  liked,  and  entering  into  all  their  debauch- 
cries  and  extravagance. 

'  The  time  for  his  trial  in  Saline  County  being  arrived,  he 
lodged  at  the  same  house,  and  ate  three  times  a  day  at  the 
same  table,  with  the  judge  appointed  to  try  him ;  and,  as 
if  the  law  were  to  be  treated  upon  this  occasion  with  yet 
unheard-of  indignities,  when  the  prosecuting  counsel,  after 
witnesses  had  been  heard,  attempted  to  address  the  jury, 
a  mob  was  collected  at  the  door  of  the  courthouse,  where 
a  pretended  affray  was  got  up,  and  such  a  tumult  raised 
,that  not  a  word  could  be  heard.  During  the  whole  of  this 
proceeding  the  judge  never 
serve  order,  and,  when  the  .  . 

ordered  Wilson  instantly  to  be  discharged,  who,  in  the 
open  court,  told  the  sheriff  "  to  take  the  jury  to  a  dram- 
shop, and  that  he  would  pay  for  all  that  was  drank  by 
them  and  everybody  else."  Upon  this  a  loud  cry  of  exul- 
tation was  raised,  all  ran  up  and  shook  hands  with  the 
acquitted  murderer,  and,  to  complete  their  outrageous  con- 
duct, many  of  them,  accompanied  by  a  majority  of  the 
jury,  when  they  had  finished  their  orgies,  having  collected 
horns,  trumpets,  and  all  sorts  of  noisy  instruments,  paraded 
the  streets  till  daylight,  continually  assembling  at  the  lod- 
gings of  the  relatives  of  the  murdered  legislator  to  shout 
and  scream  and  yell,  as  in  triumph  over  them  and  over  the 

This  account  is  taken  from  a  narrative  of  the  affair  pub- 
lished at  Little  Rock. 


card.  During  the  whole  of  this 
•  interposed  his  authority  to  pre- 
e  jury  brought  in  their  verdict, 


CHAPTER  XXVII, 

Apology  for  the  Manners  of  Arkansas-Manner  of  living 
at  Little  Rock-Aversion  to  shutting  the  Doors-Tertiary 
Deposit—  Alluvial  Bottoms,  and  the  Species  of  Plants 
growing  there-Visit  to  the  Mammelles-  German  Emi- 
grants-Geology of  the  Mammelle  Mountain-Enter  Tn 
immense  swampy  Plain-Danger  of  towelling  without  a 

being  obljged  to  treat  the 


DISGRACEFUL  as  these  manners  and  practices 
must  appear  to  Europeans,  as  well  as  to  respect- 
able Americans  in  the  older  states,  it  is  also  true 
that  although  the  few  individuals  in  Arkansas 
ivith  whom  a  stranger  is  happy  to  associate 
sometimes  express  strongly  their  abhorrence  of 
them,  yet  these  things  at  present  are  so  much 
beyond  their  control,  and  pass  so  constantly  be- 
fore their  eyes,  that  although  they  do  not  cease 
to  be  offensive,  yet  you  perceive  that  they  lose 
with  them  that  peculiar  character  of  enormity  in 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


which  they  appear  to  men  trained  in  well-order- 
ed communities.  They  tell  you,  and  not  with- 
out some  reason,  that  the  rigorous  criticisms 
which  are  fitted  to  older  states  of  society  are  not 
strictly  applicable  here;  that  this  is  a  frontier 
territory  ,vhich,  not  long  ago,  was  only  inhabit- 
ed by  the  hunter,  the  man  who  had  no  depend- 
ence for  his  existence  but  by  killing  wild  ani- 
mals; that  the  class  which  succeeded  to  this 
was  composed  of  outlaws,  who  sought  refuge 
here  from  the  power  of  the  laws  they  had  offend- 
ed ;  that  where  an  absolute  majority  in  a  com- 
munity consisted  of  criminals,  gamblers,  specu- 
lators, and  men  of  broken  fortunes,  with  no  law 
to  restrain  them,  no  obligation  to  conceal  their 
vices,  no  motive  to  induce  them  to  appear  de- 
vout or  to  act  with  sobriety,  it  was  not  surpris- 
ing that  such  men  should  indulge  openly  in  their 
propensities,  or  that  public  opinion — which,  in 
fact,  was  constituted  by  themselves — should  be 
decidedly  on  their  side,  and  opposed  to  every 
thing  that  would  seek  to  control  them;  that  their 
consolation,  however,  was,  that  the  worst  of  the 
black  period  had  passed,  that  the  territory  was 
now  under  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  a  municipal  magistracy  was  established 
in  the  town. 

Certainly,  it  is  pleasing  to  hope  that  society, 
even  here,  is  in  a  favourable  state  of  transition ; 
yet,  although  the  benign  influence  of  the  general 
government  is  strikingly  manifested,  Arkansas 
^wilJ  have  longer  to  struggle  with  the  disadvan- 
tages which  attend  it  than  Ohio,  Kentucky,  and 
other  frontier  States  of  the  Union  have  had,  the 
settlers  of  which  came  from  a  respectable  pa- 
rentage, and  with  industrious  views.  These 
communities  were  never  corrupted  by  the  man- 
ners of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  their  territories 
were  never  the  refuge  of  outlaws.  Amendment, 
therefore,  will  develope  itself  slowly  in  Arkan-< 
sas,  and  society  there  will,  for  a  long  time,  require 
a  strong  arm  and  a  vigilant  eye,  like  the  way- 
ward and  spoiled  child,  who  is  compelled  to  con- 
form to  the  hard  conditions  imposed  upon  him, 
until  the  natural  love  of  order  and  justice  is 
awakened  in  his  heart.  As  far  as  public  morals 
are  concerned,  things  will  probably  go  on  for  a 
long  time  in  their  old  course.  Demagogues  are 
already  as  busy  here  as  they  are  in  other  parts 
of  the  United  States :  all  the  offices  in  the  terri- 
tory, except  the  few  which  are  in  the  gift  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  are  elective ;  and 
candidates,  if  they  will  not  wink  at  the  vicious 
habits  of  the  people,  have  little  chance  of  suc- 
cess. At  present,  therefore,  a  great  deal  must 
be  tolerated  by  the  magistrates,  for  the  truth  is, 
they  are  only  tolerated  themselves  upon  that 
condition.  In  time,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
settlement  of  the  territory  will  bring  accessions 
of  population  from  a  healthier  stock ;  that  ex- 
amples of  religion,  probity,  and  sobriety  of  life, 
will  increase  in  number ;  that  new  generations 
will  respect  and  copy  them ;  and  that,  in  the 
end,  public  opinion  will  effect  a  regeneration  of 
habits. 

As  to  the  manner  of  living  here,  I  must  con- 
fess, that  although  my  stomach  appeared  to  be 
broken  in  to  any  sort  of  fare  before  my  arrival, 
yet  I  had  encouraged  the  hope  that  in  the  capital 
of  the  territory  1  should  find  an  agreeable  change. 
What  must  forcibly  strike  a  stranger  here,  is 
the  apparent  total  indifference  of  everybody  to 
what  we  call  personal  comforts.  No  one  seems 
to  think  that  there  is  any  thing  better  in  the 
world  than  little  square  bits  of  pork  fried  in  lard, 


bad  coffee,  and  very  indifferent  bread.  To  this, 
without  almost  any  variety,  they  go  regularly 
three  times  a  day  to  be  fed,  just  as  horses  are 
led  at  livery.  Venison,  it  is  true,  is  abundant, 
but  it  is  no  better  than  any  thing  else.  A  man 
goes  into  the  woods,  kills  a  deer 'twenty  miles 
off  skins  it,  cuts  the  haunches,  or  "hams,"  as 
they  are  called,  off,  hangs  one  on  each  side  ol 
his  saddle,  leaves  the  rest  behind  him  for  thr 
turkey-buzzard  (Cathartes  Aura,  Cuv.),  or  wolf 
and  rides  into  town.  Those  who  buy  the  ham: 
know  but  one  way  of  using  them  ;  they  cut  sli 
ces  from  them,  frythem  in  lard,  and  send  them  u 
table,  hard  and  tough,  and  swimming  in  grease 
I  once,  and  only  once,  saw  part  of  a  saddle  o» 
venison  brought  to  table;  it  had  been  killed  thaV 
day,  and  was  fat,  but  the  room  was  cold,  the 
plates  were  cold,  and  the  meat  was  underdone 
and  scarcely  warm.  Everybody  knows  that  a 
worse  state  of  things  than  this  for  venison  can- 
not be  imagined.  My  hostess  took  it  very  ill  in 
me  that  I  would  not  eat  of  it.  She  had  "  telled 
the  man  to  bring  the  saddle  in  for  me,  and  he 
had  chopped  part  of  it  off  with  an  axe,  and  had 
left  the  thin  part  behind:  she  had  put  it  in  the 
oven  instead  of  frying  it,  and  I  wouldn't  eat  it  so 
not  no  more  than  I  would  when  it  was  fried — if 
I  didn't  beat  all !"  As  to  the  aqremens  of  the  ta- 
ble, there  seemed  to  me  to  be  only  this  differ- 
ence betwixt  the  woods  and  the  town,  that  when 
you  were  eating  in  this  last  you  had  bread  and 
vegetables,  and  a  roof  over  your  head.  Those 
at  table  with  me  seemed,  however,  to  enjoy  their 
repast  as  much  as  if  it  had  been  prepared  by  an 
artist  of  the  first  talent.  They  ate  heartily,  and 
appeared  to  be  cheerful  and  contented ;  so  true 
is  it  that  we  are  the  creatures  of  education  and 
habit,  and  that  the  slovenliness  and  dirt,  which 
are  so  revolting  to  those  who  are  not  accustom- 
ed to  them,  are  not  even  seen  by  others.  An- 
other confirmed  habit  ol  the  country  is  never  to 
shut  the  doors ;  during  the  long  summer  they 
have  this  is  unnecessary,  and  they  never  do  any- 
thing that  they  are  not  compelled  to  do  ;  so  that 
when  the  winter  season  comes,  the  family  hud- 
dles round  the  fire  with  the  door  wide  open,  and 
generally  five  or  six  pains  of  glass  broken  in  the 
window,  which  no  one  thinks  of  mending  any 
more  than  of  shutting  the  door.  In  the  interior, 
where  you  stop  for  the  night,  they  usually  have 
nothing  but  shutters  to  exclude  the  air,  glazed 
windows  being  too  expensive  and  inconvenient. 
In  stormy  weather,  therefore,  you  are  often  obli- 
ged to  eat  your  meals  by  the  light  of  a  nasty 
candle  of  grease,  and  to  get  over  the  day,  if  you 
are  detained,  as  well  as  you  can  by  the  light  of 
the  fire.  But  wherever  you  go,-it  is  in  vain  you 
tell  the  blacks  to  shut  the  doors  after  them :  they 
are  eternally  coming  in  and  going  out,  big  and 
little;  so  that,  at  length,  you  give  it  up,  and  try 
to  get  out  of  the  draft  of  cold  air  as  much  as 
you  can. 

The  town  of  Little  Rock  is  surrounded  by  ex- 
tremely poor  land,  and  from  a  variety  of  concur- 
ring causes  can  never  be  very  populous.  The 
river  upon  which  it  is  situated  is  hardly  navi- 
gable four  months  in  the  year,  and  the  sandbars 
upon  it  are  annually  becoming  more  obstructive. 
As  a  place  of  deposit  for  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood, and  in  virtue  of  its  being  the  seat  of 
government,  it  may  in  time  become  a  respect- 
able small  town,  have  good  seminaries  of  edu- 
cation for  the  youth  of  the  territory,  and  afford 
agreeable  society  ;  but  in  a  commercial  point  of 
view  it  can  only  have  a  limited  share  of  trade. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


101 


White  River  will  hereafter  be  made  navigable 
for  steamers  200  miles  above  Big  Black  River, 
and  will  be  the  avenue  for  trade  to  the  northern 
districts,  whilst  Red  River  will  be  the  same  for 
the  southern.  The  resources,  too,  of  the  terri- 
tory itself  appear  to  me,  from  all  I  learn,  to  have 
been  very  much  exaggerated.  Mountains  and 
soils  of  inferior  quality  form  two  thirds  of  the 
whole  area,  and  the  rich  bottoms  which  commu- 
nicate with  the  Arkansas,  the  Mississippi,  Big 
Black,  White  River,  and  other  streams,  will  in 
most  places  require  a  great  capital  to  be  laid  out 
in  embankments,  or  levees,  as  they  are  called,  to 
secure  the  cotton  crops  from  inundation.  Cot- 
ton will  always  be  the  staple  production  of  Ar- 
kansas, which  is  therefore  destined  to  the  curse 
of  being  a  slave-holding  state. 

The  town,  as  has  been  before  stated,  is  built 
upon  a  slate  traversed  by  broad  bands  of  quartz, 
and  no  sandstone  is  superincumbent  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity ;  but  near  the  ferry  I  found  a 
partial  bed  of  tertiary  limestone,  containing  os- 
trea,  turritella,  calyptrea,  cerithium,  and  other 
marine  shells  ;  and  about  three  miles  from  Lit- 
tle Rock  the  same  deposit  reappears  in  consid- 
erable quantities,  and  is  quarried  for  the  purpose 
of  making  litne.  About  three  miles  and  a  half 
S.E.  from  Little  Rock  there  is  an  independent 
ridge  of  hard  siliceous  matter  which  is  ten  miles 
long,  and  lies  on  the  south  side  of  the  bayou  call- 
ed Fourche,  where  are  some  exceedingly  rich 
alluvial  bottoms  filled  with  trees  of  great  magni- 
tude, and  which  presented  a  very  curious  ap- 
pearance. 

The  periodical  inundations  of  the  Arkansas 
are  sometimes  of  a  terrible  character,  rising  to 
the  height  of  thirty  and  even  forty  feet.  During 
one  of  these,  in  June,  1833,  the  backwater  of  the 
river  rushed  up  the  bayou,  and  very  soon  filled 
the  extensive  alluvial  bottom:  the  river  being 
highly  charged  with  red  argillaceous  matter  col- 
lected in  its  course  from  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
left,  on  its  subsidence,  all  the  trees  painted  with 
a  chocolate-red  colour  at  a  great  distance  from 
the  ground,  so  that  the  height  of  the  inundation 
could  be  accurately  measured.  Many  trees  at- 
tain a  surprising  elevation  and  girth  in  bottoms 
of  this  kind  in  these  low  latitudes.  Amongst 
them  I  observed  Deciduous  Cypress  (Cupressa 
disticha),  Cotton- Wood-Poplar  (Populus  angula- 
to),  Populus  monilifera,  Hackberry  (Ccltis  inte- 
grifolia),  Over-Cup-White-Oak  (  Quercus  macro- 
carpa),  Coffee-Bean  Tree  ( Gymnodadus  Canaden- 
sis),  Sweet-Gum  Tree  (Liquidambar  sfyracifiua), 
One-seeded  Locust  (  Gleditsia  monosperma),  Trip- 
le-thorned  Acacia  {Acacia  triacanthos),  Ogee- 
chee  Lime  (Nyssa  pubescens"),  and  many  others. 
These  bottoms  are  so  grown  up  with  vegetable 
matter,  and  are  in  some  parts  so  difficult  to  move 
through,  on  account  of  those  vegetable  pests  the 
Saw  Briar  (Schrankia  horridula},  Green  Briar 
(Smilax},  and  Supple  Jacks  (JEnoplia  volubUis), 
all  of  which,  especially  the  Saw  Briar,  catch  and 
tear  your  clothes,  that  an  individual  not  familiar 
with  these  endless  and  gloomy  swamps  is  not 
much  tempted  to  wander  far  into  them.  Any 
one  who  should  lose  himself  and  be  exposed  to 
remaining  there  all  night,  would  have  to  climb 
a  tree,  for  those  places  are  the  favourite  resort  of 
numerous  troops  of  wolves  at  that  period.  Noth- 
ing can  exceed  the  fertility  of  these  bottoms,  but 
they  will  not  be  reclaimed  soon,  for  the  embank- 
ments necessary  to  keep  out  the  inundations 
would  require  to  be  of  the  most  formidable  and 
expensive  character. 


During  our  stay  here  we  made  various  excur- 
sions into  the  neighbourhood.  I  had  heard  of 
he  Mammelles,  and  was  desirous  of  seeing  them 
and  the  adjacent  country,  as  they  were  only 
about  twenty  miles  off,  up  the  Arkansas  River; 
accordingly,  on  the  22nd  of  November,  having 
procured  an  additional  horse,  we  took  to  the 
woods  again.  We  kept  the  slate  for  a  few  miles, 
and  then  rose  upon  ridges  of  sandstone  of  the 
same  mineral  character  as  those  we  had  travel- 
led upon  on  the  north  side  of  the  valley,  on  our 
way  to  Little  Rock,  and  which  I  have. supposed 
to  be  the  equivalent  of  the  old  red  sandstone  of 
Europe.  The  veins  of  quartz  were  here  also  of 
great  breadth  and  still  more  frequent.  We  saw 
numerous  beautiful  deer  on  the  way,  bounding 
and  skipping  about  with  great  agility,  and  then, 
showing  us  their  snow-white  tails  and  haunches -r 
but  as  we  make  war  only  on  fossils,  except  when, 
we  are  obliged  to  supply  ourselves  with  provis- 
ions, we  are  content  with  admiring  them.  The 
ridges  here  run  nearly  east  and  west  for  about 
twelve  miles  from  Little  Rock,  when  the  country 
becomes  more  level,  with  small  bottoms  of  land 
and  narrow  streams  running  through  them. 
Here  we  found  some  German  emigrants  tempo- 
rarily hutted,  who  had  gone  through  a  variety  of 
adventures  since  they  left  their  native  fader- 
land  :  they  had  been  sick  with  the  malaria  and 
were  now  recovering,  but  all  their  enthusiasm 
for  liberty  and  America  had  evaporated ;  their 
resources,  too,  were  nearly  exhausted,  and,  en- 
feebled and  disheartened,  they  seemed  not  to  look 
forward  with  pleasure  any  more,  but  rather  to 
revert  to  what  they  had  left  behind.  This  is  too 
frequently  the  fate  of  emigrants  who  are  discon- 
tented with  their  native  country ;  they  render 
themselves  unhappy  at  home  by  believing  that 
everything  at  a  distance  from  it  is  paradise ;  and 
when,  after  having  sacrificed  all  their  means  and 
encountered  continual  privations  and  sickness, 
they  have  put  an  impassable  barrier  betwixt 
themselves  and  the  soil  they  still  love  and  the 
friends  of  their  youth,  they  find  they  have  ac- 
complished nothing  but  expatriation,  that  they 
are  in  a  foreign  land  of  which  they  do  not  know 
the  language,  where  everything  appears  barba- 
rous to  them,  where  no  one  takes  the  least  inter- 
est in  them,  and  that  the  sunshine  they  once  in- 
considerately thought  belonged  to  the  future, 
now,  when  they  have  paid  the  uttermost  price 
for  it,  only  beams  in  their  sorrowful  imagina- 
tions upon  the  past. 

These  poor  people  were  delighted  to  converse 
with  me,  and  to  find  that  we  took  an  interest  in 
them.  I  gave  them  a( little  money,  of  which 
they  stood  in  great  need  to  purchase  meal,  and 
advised  them  not  to  settle  upon  the  bottom  lands 
where  the  malaria  would  constantly  persecute 
them  ;  but  rather  to  seek  an  undulating  country 
where  there  was  abundance  of  limestone  and  de- 
ciduous timber,  and  where  the  slopes  of  the  hills, 
would  yield  them  grain  and  pasturage,  and  good 
springs.  Leaving  these  worthy  people,  we  noV 
entered  upon  an  extensive  bottom  with  numer- 
ous streams  running  through  it,  one  of  which, 
about  fifteen  miles  from  Little  Rock,  is  called 
Petite  Mammelle ;  and  here,  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  this  stream,  is  that  magnificent  rocky 
cone  called  the  Mammelle  Mountain,  an  outlier  of 
the  red  sandstone,  so  often  mentioned,  of  a  very- 
precipitous  kind.  Its  south-west  aspect  is  ex- 
tremely fine,  and  resembles  a  pyramid,  the  height 
of  which  is  about  700  feet  from  its  base. 

Having  ridden  our  horses  through  the  pine- 


102 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


trees  which  extend  two-thirds  of  the  way  up  the 
mountain,  and  which  was  as  far  as  we  thought  it 
expedient  to  take  them,  we  dismounted  and  se- 
cured them  in  order  to  accomplish  the  rest  of  the 
ascent,  which  is  naked,  steep,  and  rugged,  on 
foot.  On  the  S.W.  edge  of  the  pyramid,  the 
sandstone  beds  were  lying  at  an  angle  of  70°  to 
75°,  and  in  some  places  they  were  vertical,  be- 
ing completely  set  on  end.  Many  acres  of  the 
•western  face  were  covered  with  huge  blocks  and 
fragments  of  the  rock,  without  a  plant  or  a  blade 
of  grass  to  relieve  the  rugged  and  desolate  aspect 
it  presented.  After  a  fatiguing  ascent  we  gained 
the  top,  from  whence  we  saw  the  river  Arkansas 
at  a  distance  of  about  two  miles,  and  all  the  sur- 
rounding country  at  our  feet.  The  rich  bottoms 
•were  plainly  indicated  by  the  deciduous  trees 
with  which  they  were  covered,  and  stood  in 
strong  contrast  to  the  pine  timber  growing  on  the 
ridges.  The  horizon  was  bounded  by  ridges 
bearing  S.W.  and  W.  from  us,  and  we  saw  dis- 
tinctly several  high  cones  to  the  N.W.,  which  I 
took  to  be  the  elevations  called  Magazine  and 
Mount  Cerne.  To  the  N.  was  the  interminable 
•wilderness  of  gray  leafless  forests  we  bad  so  late- 

?  passed  over,  on  our  journey  to  Little  Rock, 
he  waving  line  of  the  Arkansas,  and  the  exten- 
sive bottoms  into  which  it  rushes  when  its  chan- 
nel is  full,  were  all  before  us.  I  had  no  concep- 
tion before  of  the  great  extent  of  these  bottoms, 
•which  can  never  be  made  available  for  human 
purposes  until  they  are  protected  by  levees  from 
the  intrusion  of  the  river.  The  view  from  this 
mountain  is  extremely  characteristic  of  the  wilds 
of  America,  and  would  make  a  fine  panorama. 
But  we  had  scarcely  made  a  shetch  of  it  before 
it  was  time  to  descend,  for  evening  was  ap- 
proaching, and  we  had  yet  to  find  our  way  to  a 
person  to  whom  we  had  an  introduction,  and 
who  had  built  a  sawmill  somewhere  in  the  vi- 
cinity of  the  river  for  the  purpose  of  sawing  the 
logs  of  the  cypress  trees. 

Regain  ing  our  horses  we  pursued  our  journey, 
and  soon  entered  one  of  those  vast  dark  bottoms, 
filled  with  thick  and  lofty  trees,  all  of  which,  to 
the  height  of  about  fifteen  feet,  were  painted  a 
chocolate  colour,  as  accurately  as  if  it  had  been 
done  by  hand,  with  the  red  mud  of  the  Arkansas. 
In  this  immense  bed  of  silt,  produced  by  the  an- 
cient overflowings  of  the  river — which  rose  thir- 
ty feet  in  June,  1833 — we  came  to  a  serious  ob- 
stacle in  a  broad  and  deep  bayou,  called  the 
Grande  Mammelle.  Its  banks  were  exceeding- 
ly difficult  both  of  access  arid  egress,  and  the 
mud  appeared  so  deep  that  we  were  not  a  little 
embarrassed  what  to  do.  Happily  a  tree  had 
fallen  across,  so  getting  upon  it,  and  sounding 
the  bayou,  we  determined  to  try  it.  My  son  en- 
tered the  water  first,  mounted  on  our  friend  Mis- 
souri, for  we  knew  he  was  to  be  relied  upon  at 
a  pinch,  and  to  be  sure  he  swam  over  gallantly 
to  the  other  side ;  but  there  the  bog  was  so  deep 
and  plastic,  that  he  stuck  fast,  and  could  not  ex- 
tricate himself.  My  son  was  therefore  obliged 
to  jump  off  into  the  bayou  to  relieve  him  of  his 
weight,  and  by  the  aid  of  some  twigs  got  on  the 
bank.  After  a  great  many  violent  plunges  the 
horse  at  length  got  out  covered  from  top  to  bot- 
tom with  mud.  I  now  unsaddled  my  horse,  and 
my  son  crossing  over  to  my  side  on  the  tree  led 
him  by  the  bridle;  but  my  horse  in  his  turn  got 
completely  bogged,  and  wanting  the  spirit  of  the 
other,  he  seemed  to  give  it  up,  and  turned  his 
eyes  up  to  us  in  such  a  comical  and  reproachful 
way,  that  we  simultaneously  burst  out  a  laugh- 


ing. After  a  while  collecting  his  energies  he 
made  a  fortunate  plunge,  and  got  to  the  bank 
also. 

Having  scraped  our  nags  a  little,  we  re-sad- 
dled and  proceeded  on  amidst  those  never-ending 
painted  trees,  that  were  continually  reminding  us 
of  the  wild  power  of  the  Arkansas,  to  which,  as 
when  men  are  walking  upon  the  crater  of  an 
abated  volcano,  we  felt  as  if  we  were  too  near. 
We  had  no  path  to  guide  us,  no  marked  trees  to 
assure  us  that  we  were  in  the  right  track,  and  we 
were  not  much  encouraged  at  discovering,  as  we 
advanced,  an  endless  succession  of  stagnant  pools 
on  our  left,  showing  that  we  were  in  the  lowest 
part  of  the  swamp.  Guided  alone  by  the  com- 
pass, we  pursued  our  way,  hoping  that  this  be- 
ing the  lowest  part  of  the  bottom  it  might  be  con- 
nected with  the  stream  upon  which  the  saw-mill 
was  built.  We  had  been  told  that  this  mill  was 
about  three  or  four  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Grande  Mammelle,  but  whereabouts  this  mouth 
was  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  surmise  ;  a  very 
cold  night  was  coming  on,  my  son  was  wet 
through,  if  we  did  not  extricate  ourselves  from 
this  horrid  place  before  it  became  dark,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  proceed.  I  became  very  anx- 
ious, and  regretted  a  thousand  times  that  I  had 
not  engaged  a  guide.  What  made  my  reflections 
still  more  unpleasant  was,  that  I  had  seen  the 
extent  of  this  frightful  swamp  from  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  and  knew  that  it  extended  several 
miles  (I  afterwards  learnt  that  it  contained  from 
30,000  to  40,000  acres) ;  it  was  evident,  therefore, 
that  if  we  were  benighted,  we  might  find  it  very 
difficult  to  provide  for  our  safety  against  the 
countless  gangs  of  savage  wolves  that  range 
about  by  night.  Leaving  the  pools,  we  now  in- 
clined more  to  the  right,  and  the  forest  being 
somewhat  more  dry  and  open,  put  on  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  Arkansas,  thinking  we  should  be 
more  safe  there  than  in  the  swamp.  Steadily 
following  this  course  for  some  time,  we  came  at 
length  upon  a  cowpath,  and  felt  amazingly  cheer- 
ed by  it.  I  knew  that  it  was  the  custom  in  these 
wilds  to  turn  the  cows  out  during  the  day  to  pro- 
vide for  themselves,  and  to  shut  the  calves  up  to 
entice  their  mothers  back.  Now  the  cow  that 
made  that  path  must  have  some  place  to  go  to, 
and  something  in  the  shape  of  man  would  prob- 
ably be  there.  On  we  went,  losing  and  finding 
the  path  twenty  times,  and  at  length  came  to 
where  the  ground  was  more  beaten,  and  several 
other  paths  appeared.  A  little  embarrassed  at 
this,  we,  in  the  end,  preferred  the  most  beaten  of 
them,  and  put  our  willing  horses — who  seemed 
as  much  comforted  as  ourselves  by  these  signs — 
upon  it. 

Night  had  fallen,  when  suddenly  we  heard  the 
comforting  sound  of  the  lowing  of  cattle.  Never 
did  that  sweet  line — 

Aut  iu  reducta  valle  mujpentium — 

please  me  so  much  as  those  rural  and  friendly 
sounds;  guided  by  them  we  came  to  a  small 
house  on  the  river,  and  were  there  directed  to 
proceed  half  a  mile  to  a  settlement  where  the 
mill  was,  and  to  the  proprieto-  of  which  we  had 
an  introduction. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

A  Concert  of  Wolves— Ancient  bed  of  the  Arkansas-An 
Arkansas  Honeymoon — Method  of  crossing  a  Bayou — De- 
part from  Little  Rock  for  the  Hot  Springs  of  the  Washita 
— Explanation  of  a  "Turn-out"' — Stop  at  the  best  Hotel 
on  the  Road — "  Nisby"  and  her  "  Missus" — Stump  Han- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


103 


-A.  fastidious  Judge — Governor  Shan- 
non's Hotel— A.  Jury  de  circnmstantibus 

THE  owner  of  the  mill,  Mr.  Starbuck,  was 
-from  home  with  his  wife,  but  his  father-in-law,  a 
Mr.  Elliot  from  Virginia,  and  his  lady,  were 
•there,  and  received  us  in  a  very  friendly  manner. 
Here  we  supped  and  slept,  if  being  awake  al- 
most the  whole  night  can  be  called  sleeping,  for 
which  there  were  various  causes;  Fahrenheit's 
thermometer  fell  before  midnight  to  24°,  a  point 
which  is  sensibly  felt  in  this  latitude,  and  our 
Toom,  although  not  out  of  doors,  felt  very  much 
like  it.  Then  came  the  yelling  and  howling  of 
the  wolves,  who  made  an  incredible  noise,  es- 
pecially towards  morning,  some  barking  in  one 
•tone,  some  screaming  and  howling  in  another, 
as  if  each  one  had  his  tail  in  a  pair  of  pincers; 
an  uproar  which  appears  intended  as  a  signal 
•for  stragglers  to  come  into  the  swamp,  where 
they  crouch  during  the  day.  A  third  cause  of 
our  wakefulness  was  some  strong  green  tea  that 
•good  Mrs.  Elliot  treated  us  to;  an  excellent  bev- 
erage, if  it  is  wanted  to  dragoon  nature  into  sit 
ting  up  all  night,  but  which  upon  this  occasion 
•did  not  fail  to  give  me  abundant  opportunities  of 
thinking  about  a  great  many  things,  and  especi- 
ally of  the  very  pretty  night  we  should  have  had 
«of  it,  what  with  the  weather  and  the  wolves,  if 
•we  had  been  obliged  to  stay  in  the  swamp. 


good  long  walk  Before  breakfast.  Mr.  Starbucl 
is  a  man  of  great  resolution  and  enterprise,  am 
has  built  a  grist  and  saw  mill  at  the  edge  of  thi: 
^reat  swamp;  the  pools  we  had  seen  formed  a 
•chain  of  small  lakes,  which  extended  severa 
miles,  and  the  timber  on  each  side  of  them,  anc 
•on  their  edges,  being  almost  all  killed  by  the  water 
•formed  as  perfect  a  picture  of  desolation  as  a  for 
est  of  innumerable  dead  ragged  bare  poles  cai 
•do.  The  Cyprus  (C.  disticha),  which  is  the  tim 
ber  they  principally  saw,  flourishes  greatly  ii 
*uch  situations,  and  attains  a  prodigious  size 
As  to  the  lakes,  such  immense  quantities  of  wik 
fowl  resort  there  that  some  of  them  were  almos 
covered  with  wild  geese  and  ducks,  and  at  cer 
tain  seasons  swans  come  there  also. 

During  the  day  I  had  an  opportunity  of  mor 
minutely  examining  this  curious  locality,  an 
saw  very  clearly  that  the  long  chain  of  pools  an 
lakes  was  upon  the  line  of  an  ancient  channel  o 
the  Arkansas,  having  traced  it  through  the  swam 
to  the  river  again.    A  small  circumstance  wi 
lead  to  the  deflection  of  one  of  these  might 
-streams,  when  flowing  through  an  alluvial  coun 
try.     The  lodgement  of  a  tree  in  a  low  state  c 
the  water  will,  when  the  stream  becomes  sti 
lower,  turn  it  from  its  course,  and  produce  als 
what  is  called  a  sandbar.     The  current  having 
new  direction  given  to  it,  wears  its  way  in  tim 
through  some  low  and  weak  part  of  the  opposit 
bank,  makes  a  new  and  circituous  channel,  an 
forms  an  island,  which  in  this  part  of  the  cour 
try  is  usually  called  a  "cut  off;"  the  old  be 
now  becomes  converted  into  a  chain  of  poo 
and  lakes,  and  is  gradually  filled  up  again  by  th 
silt  deposited  by  the  annual  inundations.     I  have 
heard  of  the  channel  of  the  Mississippi  at  the 
south  being  changed  in  this  way,  a  sandbar  hav- 
ing first  turned  the  current  through  a  new  and 
weak  part  of  the  bank,  and  the  whole  flood,  in  a 
period  of  inundation,  coming  through  in  such 
force  as  to  effect,  in  24  hours,  a  new  channel  fit- 
ted for  a  steamer  to  pass  through. 


In  the  course  of  the  day  a  small  skiff  coming 

the  mill  from  below  for  some  grist,  I  prevail- 

d  upon  the  boys  who  paddled  it  to  put  us  over 

the  other  side  ofthe  river,  where  I  had  heard 
ere  were  some  settlements.  Having  landed 
pon  an  immense  sandbar,*  we  pursued  it  (oc- 
asionally  diverging  into  the  interior)  for  several 
liles,  observing  the  workings  of  this  powerful 
ood,  and  I  became  so  interested  with  what  I 
w,  and  received  so  much  information  from  this 
radical  lesson,  that  I  determined  to  follow  the 
iver  on  my  return  from  the  Mexican  frontier,  to 
s  junction  with  the  Mississippi,  a  distance  of 
bout  300  miles. 

From  the  river  we  went  a  short  distance  into 
he  interior  to  see  a  Mr.  Piat,  an  old  settler  here, 
vho  has  raised  a  large  family  in  Arkansas,  most 
f  whom  have  established  themselves  elsewhere, 
le  seemed  to  have  collected  some  comforts 
bout  him ;  but  a  Mr.  Graham,  who  lives  in  the 
eighbourhood,  has  built  himself  a  commodious 
otise,  and  has  a  few  small  fields  adjoining  to 
t,  with  a  patch  of  very  promising  looking  wheat. 
Many  persons  in  the  territory,  who  have  never 
een  accustomed  to  plant  any  thing  but  Indian. 
;orn,  imagine  that  wneat  will  not  succeed,  and 
upon  no  better  evidence  than  that  they  have 
never  sown  any;  but  the  appearance  of  Mr. 
Starbuck's  grist  mill,  the  want  of  which  had  per- 
iaps  kept  the  cultivation  of  wheat  back,  is  pro- 
ducing a  salutary  change. 

We  also  visited  a  place  we  had  heard  a  good 
deal  of  wondrous  matter  about,  called'  Crystal 
Hill.  It  is  distant  from  Little  Rock  about  14 
miles,  and  abuts  upon  the  river.  It  consisted  of 
red  sandstone  lying  upon  slaty  shale,  dipping  to 
the  south-east.  The  shale  runs  about  three- 
fourths  of  the  distance  up  the  hill,  and  the  sand- 
stone caps  it  there  at  an  inclination  of  about  60°. 
At  the  water's  edge  the  shale  contains  bands  and 
nodules  of  ironstone,  and  occasionally  pyrites  or 
sulphuret  of  iron,  which  many  persons,  ignorant 
of  minerals,  who  have  landed  here,  have  sup- 
posed connected  with  the  precious  metals,  and  so 
have  caused  the  locality  to  be  talked  about.  In- 
deed there  is  another  place  a  few  miles  lower 
down, called  Mine  Hitt, .where  some  individuals, 
upon  the  strength  of  similar  appearances,  have 
actually  dug  for  silver. 

Night  coming  on,  we  engaged  two  men  to  row 
us  back  in  a  skiff  to  a  Mr.  Henderson's,  where 
we  had  sent  our  horses  in  the  morning,  and  here 
we  were  very  hospitably  entertained.  Our  host 
had  formerly  been  a  trader  with  the  Indians,  and 
knew  this  part  of  America  well.  On  the  chim- 
ney-piece of  the  room  where  we  slept,  I  saw  a 
singular  ornament,  a  compound  mirror,  com- 
posed of  near  a  hundred  small  ones,  all  with  sep- 
arate lackered  frames,  and  fancifully  arranged 
into  one  general  frame.  He  said  it  was  the  only 
remnant  of  his  old  stock  in  trade,  and  that  he 
used  to  exchange  these  trifles  with  the  Indians 
for  their  peltry.  After  breakfast  he  was  kind 
enough  to  accompany  us  for  a  few  miles  from 
his  house,  in  order  to  see  us  safe  across  the 
Grande  Mammelle  by  another  ford,  where  there 
was  less  mud.  On  reaching  the  ford,  I  was 


*  These  sandbars,  when  the  river  is  low,  may  be  trave- 
led over  for  great  distances,  and  are  thns  used  where  there 
are  no  roads.  Some  conception  may  be  formed  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  first  settlers  have  to  contend  with,  by  stating 
that  a  very  respectable  person,  who  resides  about  50  miles 
west  of  Little  Rock,  took  his  bride  on  horseback,  to  visit 
some  friends  up  the  Arkansas,  for  the  distance  of  200  miles, 
fording  the  river  from  bar  to  bar,  and  sleeping  every  night 
upon  one  of  them. 


104 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


amused  at  the  nonchalance  with  which  he  com 
menced  his  operations;  merely  crossing  his  own 
stirrups  over  the  saddle,  he  led  his  horse  to  th< 
stream,  and  drove  him  in  with  a  few  strokes  o 
the  whip,  when  the  animal,  partly  swimming 
and  partly  walking,  soon  got  over.  Then  taking 
the  saddles  from  our  horses,  and  tying  the  bridles 
round  their  necks,  he  drove  our  horses  across  in 
the  same  manner,  which  immediately  joined  hi: 
nag  that  was  cropping  the  leaves  of  a  cane-brak( 
on  the  opposite  side.  With  our  saddles  on  oui 
shoulders,  we  now  crossed  the  bayou,  over  a  tree 
which  had  been  felled  for  the  purpose,  and  re- 
mounting, soon  came  on  the  eastern  and  south 
fronts  of  the  Mammelle  Mountain,  which  we 
found  was  connected  with  a  low  peaked  chain 
that  extended  to  the  river,  and  abutted  upon  i 
opposite  to  the  long  sandbar.  Having  taken  a 
friendly  leave  of  our  guide,  and  received  his  di- 
rections for  our  course,  we  without  difficulty  got 
into  the  old  road  and  reached  Little  Rock  again 
in  the  afternoon. 

On  the  27th  of  November  we  again  put  our 
little  waggon  in  motion,  and  directed  our  course 
towards  the  hot  springs  of  Washita  (pronounced 
Washitaw).  For  the  first  eight  miles  the  road 
was  very  bad,  full  of  rocks,  stumps,  and  deep 
mud  holes,  and  wound  up  one  of  those  sandstone 
ridges  that  are  so  common  in  this  country.  We 
frequently  came  upon  trees  that  had  fallen  across 
the  road,  and  had  lain  there  many  years,  exhib- 
iting an  indifference  on  the  part  of  "the  settlers 
unknown  in  the  more  industrious  northern  states. 
When  a  tree  falls  on  the  narrow  forest  road,  the 
first  traveller  that  passes  is  obliged  to  make  a 
circuitous  track  around  it,  and  the  rest  follow 
him  for  the  same  reason.  I  have  observed  this 
peculiarity  both  in  Missouri  and  Arkansas.  If 
a  tree  is  blown  down  near  to  a  settler's  house, 
and  obstructs  the  road,  he  never  cuts  a  log  out 
of  it  to  open  a  passage;  it  is  not  in  his  way,  and 
travellers  can  do  as  they  please,  because  nobody 
would  prevent  their  cutting  it.  But  travellers 
feeling  no  inclination  to  do  what  they  think  is 
not  their  business,  never  do  it.  The  settler  in 
these  wild  countries  plants  to  live,  and  not  to 
take  to  market;  if  he  is  on  horseback  he  cares 
little  about  it,  if  he  is  in  a  light  waggon  he  can 
get  round  the  tree  in  less  time  than  it  would  take 
to  stop  and  "work  for  others."  Thus  the  old 
adage  is  verified,  that  "  what  is  every  body's 
business  is  nobody's  business;"  but  what  makes 
this  unjustifiable  indolence  on  the  part  of  the 
settler — when  the  obstruction  is  near  his  house — 
sometimes  very  absurd,  is,  that  often  when  a 
track  is  established  round  the  first  fallen  tree 
another  obstruction  shuts  up  this  track,  and  so  in 
a  long  period  of  time  the  established  track  gets 
removed  into  the  woods,  far  out  of  sight  of  the 
settler's  house.  If  you  ask  him  why  he  does  not 
cut  a  log  out  of  the  first  fallen  tree,  he  will  prob- 
ably say  that  "  it  is  not  his  business  to  wait  upon 
travellers,"  and  indeed  the  distances  from  house 
to  house  are  sometimes  so  very  great,  that  it 
would  be  unreasonable  to  require  of  any  par- 
ticular settler  to  remove  all  such  obstructions. 
These  circuitous  tracks  are  known  by  the  name 
of  turn-outs,  and  if  you  are  inquiring  towards 
evening  how  many  miles  it  is  to  the  next  settle- 
ment, you  perhaps  will  be  told,  "  16  miles  and  a 
heap  of  turn-outs."  We  once  made  a  calculation 
that  these  turn-outs  had  added  at  least  five  miles 
to  our  journey  in  Missouri  and  Arkansas.  Apro- 
pos of  the  pronunciation  of  this  word — which 
undoubtedly  is  a  Gallo-American  corruption  of 


an  Indian  name — the  universally  adopted  one 
now  is  Arkunsaw,  pronouncing  the  first  syllable 
as  we  do  in  the  word  arm,  and  the  last  as  we  do 
saw — a  carpenter's  tool;  the  middle  syllable  is 
short. 

Having  reached  the  top  of  the  sandstone  ridge, 
we  found  a  tolerably  good  table-land,  watered  by 
numerous  small  transparent  streams,  some  of 
which  run  into  the  Arkansas,  others  into  the 
Bayou  Bartholomew,  a  tributary  of  the  Saline 
River,  before  it  joins  the  Washita.  As  we  ad- 
vanced, the  vegetation  began  to  assume  more 
and  more  a  semi-tropical  character;  several  spe- 
cies of  oaks  which  we  had  not  seen  now  appear- 
ed, especially  the  narrow-leaved  varieties;  the 
willow  oak  (  Qucrcus  phdlcs)  was  very  abundant ; 
and  we  found  the  first  plant  we  had  seen  of  the 
bow  wood  (Madura  aurantiaca),  but  without 
any  fruit  on  it.  In  the  evening  we  came  to  a 
sort  of  tavern,  27  miles  from  Little  Rock,  built 
on  a  rich  bottom  of  land,  at  the  north  fork  of  the 
Saline,  a  violent  stream  in  the  season  of  freshets 
or  floods,  which  then  overflows  its  banks  20  feet. 
This  place  was  kept  by  a  sort  of  she  Caliban, 
and  the  tenement  consisted  of  one  room  with  a 
mud  floor,  in  the  various  corners  of  which  were 
four  cranky  beadsteads,  upon  which  were  hud- 
dled what  she  chose  to  call  bed  clothes.  But 
what  bed  clothes!  Then  there  was  a  door  that 
would  not  shut,  a  window  frame  with  every  pane 
Droken,  and  some  benches  to  sit  on  before  a 
Droken  table,  to  form  the  sum  total  of  the  furni- 
ure  and  appliances  of  this  hotel.  She  told  us 
we  might  choose  our  own  bed,  and  after  we  had 
3ut  our  horse  up,  she  would  give  us  some  sup- 
ser.  As  it  had  already  begun  to  rain,  we  were 
*lad  to  be  housed  for  the  night,  and  having  put 
Missouri  into  a  hovel,  consisting  of  open  logs, 
with  some  boards  to  cover  him,  and  left  him, 
with  plenty  of  Indian  corn  leaves  and  some  grain, 
we  adjourned  to  the  fire-side.  The  rain  now  be- 
gan to  pour  down  in  torrents,  and  before  our  sup- 
Der  was  ready  four  more  travellers  joined  us,  os- 
ensibly  on  their  way  to  a  government  sale  of 
and  at  a  distant  county.  I  was  glad  of  this,  be- 
cause one  of  them  was  Colonel  A*****,  of  Lit- 
le  Rock,  a  v^ry  intelligent  and  agreeable  per- 
son, with  whom  I  was  acquainted. 

This  accession  to  her  company  put  our  host- 
ess into  a  great  bustle  ;  she  had  to  prepare  sup- 
per for  six  persons,  several  of  whom  were  law- 
yers, and  of  course  the  great  men  of  Little  Rock, 
and  she  set  about  it  accordingly.  We  now  dis- 
:overed  that  she  possessed  reso'urces  we  had  not 
suspected  the  existence  of;  a  kitchen — that  cor- 
•esponded  with  every  thing  else — was  attached 
o  the  hotel,  and  communicated  with  it  by  a 
mall  door,  and  in  that  kitchen  was  her  aide  de 
uisine  and  factotum,  a  stunted,  big-headed  ne- 
ro  girl,  that  from  her  size  did  not  appear  to  be 
more  than  twelve,  yet  was  not  destined  to  see 
er  twentieth  year  again.  The  grotesque  rags 
his  creature  was  dressed  in,  and  the  broken- 
irimmed  man's  hat  that  was  cocked  on  one  side 
f  her  head,  gave  such  an  effect  to  the  general: 
ttractions  of  Nisbi/ — for  that  was  her  name — 
bat  she  put  us  all  into  the  very  best  possible  hu- 
iour,  and  we  could  not  but  break  out  into  a 
huckle  of  delight  whenever  she  came  into  the 
oom.  Whenever  we  became  better  acquaint- 
d,  we  found  that  Nisby  was  an  abbreviation  of 
lophynisby,  as  our  hostess  pronounced  it,  which 
ut  me  in  mind  of  Thomson's  line — 

"  Oh  Sophoiusba,  Sophonisba,  Oh  !" 

I  know  not  when  I  have  uttered  so  many  laugh- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


105 


ing  Ohs !  as  during  the  early  part  of  this  even 
ing.  The  appearance  of  the  girl  indicated  ex- 
treme stolidity,  yet  she  did  not  want  for  spirit 
and  activity.  Her  "Missus."*who  seemed  to 
have  a  lurking  idea  that  things  might  possibly  be 
carried  on  a  "  leetel"  better  than  they  were  at  her 
hotel,  always  endeavoured  to  supply  deficiencies 
by  a  voluble  and  magniloquent  description  of  the 
things  she  "hadn't  jisl  got  at  that  time;"  and 
•whenever  she  was  at  a  pinch,  would  draw  upon 
Nibby  to  confirm  her  assertions :  this  the  girl 
was  pretty  well  broken  into,  but  when  the  "  Mis- 
sus," in  the  warmth  of  her  generous  intentions 
in  our  favour,  would  sometimes  call  upon  Nisby 
to  execute  instanter  manifest  impossibilities,  then 
poor  Nisby  would  be  "nonplushed,"  and,  if  hard 
pressed.would  betray  something  that  looked  like 
impatience.  We  had  an  amusing  instance  of 
this  whilst  the  supper  was  preparing.  Upon  the 
broken  table  around  which  we  were  to  sit,  Nis- 
by had  placed  certain  plates  and  coffee  cups  and 
saucers,  most  of  which  had  gone  through  a  great 
many  hardships;  and  having  used  her  talent  for 
display  to  the  best  advantage,  went  to  the  kitch- 
en, where  her  Missus  was  occupied  baking  some 
heavy  dough  cakes,  and  frying  a  quantity  of  lit- 
tle bits  of  fat  pork.  By  and  by  in  came  Missus 
to  take  a  survey  before  the  first  entree  came  in, 
and  affecting  a  most  distressing  surprise,  com- 
menced the  following  dialogue  with  her  aide  de 
cuisine  at  the  top  of  their  voices : 

"  Why,  how  this  gal  has  laid  the  table  !  Nis- 
by 1" 

"  What's  awanting,  Missus  7" 
"  You  ha-ant  laid  the  table  no  hay w,  you  kree- 
ter,  you !" 

"  I  reckon  I  couldn't  do  it  no  better." 
"  Why,  whar  on  arth  is  all  the  forks  V 
"  Why,  the  forks  is  on  the  table  thar." 
"If  you  don't  beat  all— I  mean  the  new  forks." 
"  I  niver  seen  no  new  forks,  you  know  that, 
Missus." 

"  Whar  has  the  kreetur  put  the  forks,  I  say  V 
No  answer. 

"  Wahl !  if  you  don't  find  the  forks,  I  allow  I  '11 
give  it  to  you !" 

Enter  Nisby,  agitata.  ]%ft 

(Solto  voce  e  staccato.')  "  I  ha-ant  put  no  forks 
nowhar.  I  niver  seen  no  forks  but  them  ar 
what's  on  the  table;  thar's  five  on  'em,  and  thar's 
not  no  more ;  thar's  Stump  Handle,  Crooky  Prongs, 
Horny,  Big  Pewter,  and  Little  Pickey,  and  that's 
jist  what  thar  is,  and  I  expec  they  are  all  thar  to 
speak  for  themselves." 

And  Nisby  was  right.  Stump  Handle  was  there, 
and  was  by  far  the  most  forkable-looking  con- 
cern, for  it  consisted  of  one  prong  of  an  old  fork 
stuck  into  a  stumpy  piece  of  wood.  Crooky 
Prongs  was  curled  over  on  each  side,  adapting 
itself  in  an  admirable  manner  to  catch  cod-fish, 
but  rather  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  sticking  into 
anything.  Horny  had  apparently  never  been  at 
Sheffield  or  Birmingham,  as  it  was  a  sort  of  im- 
itation of  a  fork  made  out  of  a  cow's  horn.  Big 
Pewter  was  made  of  the  handle  of  a  spoon  with 
the  bowl  broken  off;  and  Little  Pickey  was  a 
dear  interesting  looking  little  thing,  something 
like  a  cobbler's  awl  fastened  in  a  thick  piece  of 
wood. 

As  my  son  and  myself  had  our  own  knives  and 
forks,  we  did  not  dispute  the  choice  of  the  re- 
markable ones  on  the  table ;  and  the  guests,  ex- 
cessively diverted  with  this  dialogue,  good  na- 
turedly  adapted  themselves  to  the  necessity  of  the 
O 


case.  We  contrived  to  swallow  some  of  the 
wretched  coffee,  by  putting  a  great  deal  of  sugar 
into  it;  and  we  tasted  the  heavy  cakes,  one-third 
of  which  seemed  to  be  mere  dirt.  Indeed  every 
thing  was  so  dirty,  that  my  stomach  revolted  at 
what  was  before  us.  The  old  hag  sat  at  the  ta- 
ble to  pour  out  the  Coffee,  and  saw  well  enough 
that  we  were  disgusted ;  but  as  we  said  nothing, 
she  made  no  remarks.  One  of  the  guests,  how- 
ever, told  a  capital  story,  which  was  a  fair  hit, 
and  which  she  did  not  relish  at  all.  It  was  of 
one  Judge  Dooly,  who  was  obliged  to  make  cer- 
tain circuits  in  an  unsettled  part  of  the  country, 
and  being  rather  fastidious,  did  not  always  sub- 
mit in  silence  to  the  inconvenience  he  was  expo- 
sed to  by  the  dirt  and  slovenliness  of  others.  It 
happened  that  the  landlord  of  a  tavern  he  was  oc- 
casionally obliged  to  stop  at,  had  a  dispute  with 
another  tavern-keeper  about  the  direction  of  a  * 
new  road  that  was  going  to  be  laid  out,  each  or 
them  being  very  anxious  to  have  it  brought  near  to 
his  house  :  he  took  the  liberty,  therefore,  of  can- 
vassing the  Judge — who  was  one  of  the  persons 
that  was  to  determine  the  course  of  the  road — and 
endeavoured  to  convince  him  that  the  road  ought 
to  come  to  his  house,  frequently  apologizing,, 
however,  and  saying  that  "  the  Judge  knew  best 
what  suited  him,  but  he  hoped  there  was  no  harm 
in  giving  a  friendly  opinion."  "  Not  at  all,"  re- 
plied the  Judge,  "  and  I  will  in  return  offer  you 
some  friendly  advice,  that  may  perhaps  be  use- 
ful to  you  in  regard  to  your  table,  if  the  road 
should  happen  to  come  this  way.  You  know 
best,  but  I  should  think  it  would  be  better  for  you,, 
when  travellers  come  to  your  house,  to  have  the 
dirt  put  on  one  dish,  and  the  bar's  (bear's)  meat 
on  another,  for  I  swear  I  like  to  mix  such  things 
for  myself,  and  not  to  let  others  do  it  for  me." 

When  we  had  left  the  table  and  drew  near  to 
the  fire,  a  great  many  pleasant  stories  were  told. 
Colonel  *****,  who  for  several  years  attended 
the  circuits  to  remote  and  barbarous  parts  of  the' 
territory,  said,  that  although  professional  men 
had  still  many  curious  scenes  to  go  through,  yet 
that  they  now  fared  much  better,  and  found  some 
sort  of  accommodation  more  frequently  than  for- 
merly. He  stated  that  some  years  ago,  after  a 
hard  day's  ride,  there  was  only  one  cabin  at 
which  they  could  stop,  and  that  it  was  very  im- 
portant to  reach  it  in  the  winter  season.  This 
cabin  belonged  to  an  old  hunter,  a.  pioneer  in 
that  part  of  the  country,  to  whom  the  lawyers — 
in  virtue  of  the  extensive  jurisdiction  he  had  in 
the  wilderness — had  given  the  title  of  Governor 
Shannon;  it  consisted  of  one  solitary  room  with 
a  mud  floor,  and  not  a  single  article  of  furniture 
except  an  old  log  that  he  had  hollowed  out,  and 
that  he  slept  in  at  night,  and  sat  upon  at  other 
times.  Upon  this  mud  floor  travellers  used  to 
stretch  themselves  in  their  blanket-coats,  and 
there  they  pigged  with  the  Governor,  an  old  ne- 
gress,  and  a  team  of  dogs  he  kept  to  hunt  thebars^ 
which  were  numerous  around  him.  As  there 
dad  never  been  a  door — or  any  contrivance  ap- 
proaching it — to  the  cabin,  the  dogs  used  to  come 
in  and  go  out  whenever  they  pleased :  if  they 
were  all  asleep,  the  barking  of  a  wolf  would 
rouse  them,  and  out  they  would  rush  over  the 
recumbent  travellers,  without  being  at  all  partic- 
ular where  they  trod  upon  them.  On  their  re- 
turn, wet  and  covered  with  dirt,  they  made  no 
ceremony  of  who  they  laid  near,  nor  whom  they 
laid  upon,  for  dogs  like  to  lie  warm,  and  this 
was  the  reason  why  the  Governor  had  made  his- 
bed  in  a  log.  It  happened  upon  one  occasioo 


106 


TRAVELS   IN  AMERICA. 


that  a  judge,  who  had  never  made  this  circuit 
before,  favoured  the  Governor  with  his  compa- 
ny, and  becoming  at  length  outrageously  annoy- 
«d  at  the  stench  and  filth  of  the  dogs,  one  of 
which  had  acted  very  irreverently  to  his  Hon- 
our, called  out  to  the  Governor,  that  if  he  did  not 
take  a  dog  away  that  was  upon  him,  he  would 
kill  him  on  the  spot.  Upon  which  his  Excellen- 
cy replied,  that  he  "  would  be if  the 

bl — d  judges  and  lawyers  of  Arkansas  hadn't 
slept  with  his  dogs  for  seven  years,  and  that  if 
any  man  touched  one  of 'em,  he  would  send  him 
to  sleep  with  the  painters,  in  less  than  no  time." 
The  Governor  was  well  known  to  be  a  resolute 
fellow,  and  as  there  was  no  other  settler  nearer 
•than  30  miles,  and  "  a  pretty  considerable  sprink- 
ling of  bars  and  painters  about,"  the  Judge 
thought  it  best  to  put  up  with  this  slight  upon 
his  authority. 

We  had  also  another  very  characteristic  story, 
'When  the  Americans  first  crossed  over  into  Tex- 
as, they,  as  usual,  scattered  themselves  about  the 
country,  each  selecting  a  suitable  situation  in  a 
-well- watered  fertile  part,  not  more  distant  than 
ten  or  twenty  miles  from  each  other.  This  was 
very  convenient  for  the  thieves  and  homicides, 
"whose  practices  sometimes  made  it  necessary  for 
them  to  escape  even  from  Little  Rock,  and  to  these 
settlers  they  upon  such  occasions  resorted.  Ere 
long,  however,  their  evil  doings  made  them  as 
obnoxious  to  these  pioneers  in  Texas  as  they 
had  been  to  others,  and  the  settlers  combined  to 
drive  them  off.  It  happened  that  three  fellows 
«f  the  very  worst  stamp,  two  of  whom  had  com- 
mitted murder,  and  the  other  was  a  notorious 
horse  thief,  had  broken  jail  at  Little  Rock,  and 
"were  pursued  and  traced  into  Texas,  where  they 
had  eluded  their  pursuers.  At  this  time  the 
Mexican  laws  nominally  prevailed  in  that  part 
of  the  country,  for  the  Americans  professed  to  be 
'Mexican  citizens,  and  there  being  no  Mexican 
authorities  to  administer  justice,  one  of  the 
.American  settlers,  a  man  of  some  resolution, 
was  appointed  by  his  fellow  countrymen  to  act 
as  a  magistrate,  and  was  called  "Alcalde." 
There  being  some  reason  to  believe  that  the  three 
vagabonds  were  hid  away  in  an  extensive  corn- 
brake,  a  party  was  formed  to  hunt  them  up,  and 
;having  found  and  secured  them,  they  were  taken 
to  the  Alcalde's  house.  A  court  was  immedi- 
ately held,  and  a  narrative  entered  into  of  the 
•circumstances  under  which  they  had  been  tra- 
•ced,  and  finally  captured  in  the  corn-brake.  But 
•as  no  evidence  was  adduced  to  prove  that  these 
men  had  been  guilty  of  the  crimes  imputed  to 
them,  the  Alcalde  declared,  "  I  swar  I'm  non- 
plushed  ;  these  is  the  right  fellows — no  doubt  of 
that — but  who's  to  prove  it,  and  who  onder  arth 
is  to  take  'em  back  to  Little  Rock  I  want  to 
know."  The  Alcalde's  wife,  coming  into  the 
council  just  at  this  time,  looked  at  the  culprits, 
and  in  one  of  them  discovered  a  fellow  who  had 
stolen  some  linen  from  her  cabin  when  she  lived 
in  Arkansas,  and  who  was  known  to  have  kill- 
ed a  cow  belonging  to  her  brother,  for  the  sake 
of  the  skin.  "  I  tell  you,  old  Caldy,"  said  she, 
"if  you  don't  hang  these  fellows  up  right  off, 
you'll  never  have  such  another  chance,  and  mind 
what  I  tell  you,  I  calculate,  if  you  don't,  you 
ai'nt  agoing  to  have  a  skin  left  on  a  kay w's  back, 
nor  a  shift  to  mine,  to  all  etarnity."  This  alarm- 
ing prospect  decided  the  fate  of  the  jail-breakers, 
and  they  were  all  hung  up  within  half  an  hour. 

But  the  best  story  of  the  evening  was  related 
fcv  a  lawyer  who  had  been  personally  concerned 


in  it.  Four  other  culprits  had  also  broiren  jail 
at  Little  Rock,  where  they  had  been  put,  prepar- 
atory to  being  sent  to  a  distant  part  of  the  coun- 
try to  be  tried  in  the  district  where  they  had  com- 
mitted their  offences.  Three  of  them  were  char- 
ged with  murder,  and  the  fourth  with  several  ca- 
ses of  horse  stealing,  a  crime  at  the  head  of  all 
offences  there,  since  there  is  nothing  manly  in  it, 
and  nothing  more  inconvenient.  Their  counsel, 
for  it  was  he  who  related  the  story  to  us,  said 
that  they  had  good  friends,  and  that  he  was  well 
paid  for  defending  them.  As  soon  as  he  ascer- 
tained from  his  clients  that  they  were  all  guilty, 
he  arranged  his  plan  for  their  defence.  The 
place  where  they  were  to  be  tried  consisted  of  a 
single  house  in  the  wilderness,  which  represent- 
ed the  future  county  town;  the  witnesses  were 
on  the  spot,  and  all  the  appliances  to  constitute 
a  Court.  Twelve  men  had  been  with  some  dif- 
ficulty got  to  leave  home,  and  come  to  this  place 
to  perform  the  part  of  a  jury.  At  the  critical 
moment,  however,  one  of  these  men  was  not  to 
be  found ;  and  as  a  panel  could  not  be  formed, 
the  judge  stated  the  fact,  and  asked  what  step 
the  prosecuting  attorney  intended  to  take.  The 
counsel  of  the  accused,  after  many  protestations 
of  their  innocence,  and  their  strong  desire  to 
prove  it  without  loss  of  time,  now  proposed  to 
fill  the  panel  de  circumstantibus.  It  so  happen- 
ed that  the  only  circumstantes  were  the  three 
murderers  and  the  horse-stealer,  so  they  put  one 
of  the  murderers  into  the  jury,  and  first  tried  the 
horse-stealer  and  acquitted  him,  and  then  put  the 
horse-stealer  into  the  panel  and  acquitted  the 
murderer;  and  by  this  sort  of  admirable  contri- 
vance the  whole  four  were  honourably  acquitted, 
and  returned  perfectly  whitewashed  into  the  bo- 
som of  society ;  the  jury  and  the  rest  of  the  court 
also,  having  got  rid  of  a  tedious  and  unpleasant 
business,  returned  without  delay  to  their  respect- 
ive homes. 

The  hour  at  length  came  for  us  to  retire  to  our 
dingy-looking  beds.  On  examining  the  extra- 
ordinary bundle  of  rags  of  which  mine  seemed 
composed,  I  found  one  coarse  sheet  beneath — 
they  never  put  more  than  one  sheet  to  a  bed — 
that  had  perhaps  been  slept  upon  by  a  score  of 
persons,  and  a  coarse  blanket  at  the  top  of  that : 
the  pillow  was  a  good  match  to  the  rest;  so,  get- 
ting into  a  large  flannel  bag  I  had  made  for  the 
purpose,  which  left  my  arms  free,  and  tied  close 
round  my  neck,  I  covered  the  pillow  with  a  silk 
handkerchief,  tumbled  all  the  rags  on  the  floor, 
wrapped  myself  in  a  blanket-coat,  and  laid  down, 
bidding  defiance  to  the  myriads  of  bugs  that  were 
confidently  expecting  their  prey. 

The  rain  was  still  pouring  down  when  I  awoke 
in  the  morning,  but  jumping  instantly  up,  1  un- 
packed myself,  and  finding  a  pail  of  water  and  a 
gourd  to  dip  it  out  with,  on  a  shelf  near  the  door 
— an  excellent  custom  which  obtains  here — I 
hastened  to  make  my  ablutions,  and  having  dri- 
ed my  towel  at  the  fire,  prepared  to  depart.  But 
the  rain  continuing  to  fall  in  torrents,  we  were 
all  compelled  to  sit  down  at  the  table  once  more 
with  Little  Pickey  and  Company.  The  break- 
fast was  more  disgusting  than  the  supper,  be- 
cause the  friendly  darkness  had  concealed  much 
of  the  filth,  and  of  the  sordid  appearance  of  eve- 
ry thing  around  us.  At  length,  however,  it 
cleared  up,  and  we  got  away  from  this  den  of 
rags  and  nastiness,  just  in  season  to  ford  the  Sa- 
line, which  was  beginning  to  rise. 


TRAVELS   IN  AMERICA. 


107 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Arrive  at  Magnet  Cove— An  interesting  Mineral  Locality — 
Strange  effects  of  a  Hurricane— Reach  the  Hot  Springs— 
Whittington  without  his  Cat — Rare  accommodations— 
Description  of  the  Springs— Fishes  in  Hot  Water — Tem- 
perature and  Gaseous  Contents  of  the  Hut  Springs— The 
Travertine  presents  different  Constituents  below  the 
Surface. 

COLONEL  CONWAY,  the  surveyor-general  of 
-the  territory  of  Arkansas,  was  at  this  time  build- 
ing a  cottage  for  his  family  to  escape  to,  during 
the  season  of  malaria  at  his  plantation  on  Red 
River;  and  had  been  kind  enough  to  give  me  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  his  lady,  desiring  her  to 
receive  us  hospitably  for  the  night,  if  we  found 
it  convenient  to  stay  there.  This  cottage,  which 
was  in  a  secluded  place  called  Magnet  Cove,  we 
-determined  to  reach  if  we  coulJ.  Passing  over 
the  same  kind  of  country  we  had  seen  the  day 
"before,  pine  timber  prevailing,  and  the  holly 
(Jtez  (rpaca)  beginning  to  be  abundant,  we  at 
length,  after  crossing  some  streams  that  were 
extremely  swelled,  reached  Trammels,  another 
miserable  looking  cabin,  and  here  we  left  the 
road  to  Texas  and  turned  into  an  obscure  track 
that  led  to  Magnet  Cove  and  the  Hot  Springs. 
Por  the  first  three  miles  the  country  rose,  and 
the  road  became  exceedingly  rocky  and  difficult; 
added  to  which  the  mounta'in  streams  were  be- 
ginning to  assume  a  fierce  character  that  rendered 
them  dangerous,  frequently  covering  the  track, 
so  that  we  could  not  see  it,  and  concealing  rocks 
which  often  were  on  the  point  of  overturning  us. 

At  length  the  country  became  more  open,  and 
as  night  was  approaching  we  looked  about  with 
some  anxiety  for  Magnet  Cove.  What  it  was 
like  no  one  had  told  me;  I  had  intended  to  have 
got  more  particular  directions  from  Colonel  Con- 
way,  but  an  engagement  prevented  our  meeting 
at  my  departure  from  Little  Rock,  and  he  had 
sent  the  letter  to  my  lodgings.  The  nature  of 
the  country  did  not  promise  anything  like  a  cove, 
but  always  hoping  that  we  should  discover  it, 
we  pushed  on,  and  at  length  descended  from  the 
table-land  into  a  gloomy  looking  lowland  very 
densely  timbered.  Here  we  found  two  or  three 
tracks,  and  were  doubtful  which  to  lake.  One 
of  them  probably  led  to  the  Hot  Springs  and  the 
other  to  the  cottage :  seing  some  twigs  lately  bro- 
ken on  the  left-hand  track  we  turned  into  it,  and 
soon  after  saw  a  still  fresher  track  on  our  left  in 
the  woods.  Driving  on  as  quick  as  we  could  we 
came  at  length  to  where  we  perceived  that  the 
lowland  was  encircled  by  lofty  hills,  and  now  it 
occurred  to  me  that  thi-s  was  one  of  those  roman- 
tic places  such  as  we  had  seen  in  Virginia 
and  Tennessee,  and  which  are  there  also  called 
toves,  and  perceiving  a  clearing,  and  looking 
back  through  it  we  saw  a  cottage  to  which  the 
track  we  had  last  passed  evidently  led  ;  so  turn- 
ing back  we  followed  this  track,  and  at  last  came 
to  the  cottage.  Mrs.  Conway  received  us  very 
politely,  and  unprepared  for  visiters  as  she  was, 
•with  carpenters  and  labourers  to  provide  for,  had 
some  supper  got  for  us.  Seeing  that  we  were 
very  much  in  the  way,  we  retired  to  rest  in  a 
room  which  was  not  yet  enclosed,  and  was  still 
open  to  the  weather  on  the  side  where  the  chim- 
ney was  hereafter  to  be  built,  an  inconvenience 
which  was  remedied  as  well  as  circumstances 
admitted  of,  by  hanging  up  some  counterpanes ; 
but  everything  was  very  clean  and  we  rested 
well. 

In  the  morning,  at  dawn  of  day,  I  sallied  out 
to  view  the  place,  and  having  walked  through 


the  bottom,  made  my  way  up  the  lofty  elevation, 
with  which  it  was  surrounded,  and  looked  down 
into  the  interior,  which  was  in  fact  a  deep  basin 
containing  about  1200  acres  of  the  richest  land, 
and  thickly  wooded.  What  struck  me  very 
much  was,  that  the  whole  area — which  rather 
affects  a  spheroidal  than  a  circular  form — com- 
prehending this  cove  both  outside  and  in,  was 
covered  with  deciduous  trees,  whilst  without  its 
limits  the  trees  were  all  evergreens  and  pines. 
Upon  examining  the  rocks  upon  which  these  de- 
ciduous trees  grew,  I  found  they  were  constituted 
of  a  decomposing  and  very  ancient  greenstone, 
that  had  intruded  itself  into  the  general  strata  of 
sandstone  of  the  surrounding  country,  whilst  the 
evergreens  grew  only  upon  the  sandstone  out- 
side. Having  returned  to  the  house,  and  made 
a  very  comfortable  breakfast,  I  sallied  out  again 
to  look  at  some  localities  where  Colonel  Con- 
way  had  told  me  I  should  find  some  curious  min- 
erals. 

He  had  informed  me  that  on  surveying  the 
country  the  needle  would  not  traverse  on  ap- 
proaching this  locality,  and  the  cause  was  here 
apparent  from  a  mound  in  the  Cove,  covered 
with  pebbles  of  magnetic  micaceous  oxide  of 
iron  from  one  ounce  to  four  pounds  weight. 
These  pebbles,  like  those  of  the  vein  in  Missou- 
ri which  goes  by  the  name  of  Iron  Mountain, 
overlie  masses  of  the  metal  of  prodigious  extent, 
which,  from  their  great  magnetic  force,  probably 
influence  the  country  around  for  a  great  dis- 
tance. Some  of  the  specimens  which  I  brought 
away — especially  one  which  contained  a  portion 
of  a  large  crystal  of  iron — possess  an  intensity  of 
magnetic  power  which  is  truly  surprising.  In 
other  pans  of  the  bottom  I  found  large  masses  of 
decomposing  felspar,  studded  with  black  tour- 
malines, some  of  which  were  in  long  prisms, 
whilst  others  were  in  stellated  groups,  with  beau- 
tifully delicate  acicular  rays.  In  some  of  these 
felspathic  rocks  were  amorphous  pieces  of  white 
sulphuret  of  iron,  believed  here  to  be  silver.  Oc- 
casionally the  rock  in  the  bottom  was  a  coarse- 
grained kind  of  syenite,  composed  of  red  felspar, 
hornblende,  mica,  and  some  quartz.  In  a  smalJ 
field,  not  far  from  the  house,  which  had  been  re- 
cently ploughed — and  where  there  was  no  tim- 
ber growing  when  Colonel  Conway  first  took  the 
possession  of  this  place — I  found  a  great  many 
Indian  arrow  heads  made  of  a  beautiful  semi- 
transparent  kind  of  novaculite  ;  and  in  one  place 
an  immense  number  of  chips  and  broken  arrow 
heads,  all  of  this  stone,  were  lying  together. 
This  had  been  evidently  a  favourite  retreat  for 
the  Indians,  but  I  looked  in  vain  for  the  rock 
from  which  the  novaculite  had  been  taken. 

Upon  considering  all  the  circumstances  con- 
nected with  this  cove,  the  intrusive  character  of 
its  rocks,  their  distinct  origin  and  separation  from 
the  sandstone,  its  minerals,  the  quasi-crateri  form 
of  the  cove,  and  the  immense  deposit  of  magnetic 
iron,  I  could  not  but  be  impressed  with  the  opin- 
ion that  Magnet  Cove  ows  its  origin  to  an  an- 
cient volcanic  action,  and  that  it  is  one  of  those 
extinct  craters  that  may  have  preceded  that  class 
where  basalt  and  lava  are  the  principal  products. 

I  left  this  rare  place  full  of  admiration  ;  if  it 
were  in  social  respects  a  desirable  situation  for  a 
residence,  the  proprietor  would  certainly  possess 
one  of  the  most  enviable  estates  in  America. 

We  had  proceeded  over  the  sandstone  about 
six  miles — always  going  parallel  with  the  Wash- 
ita,  which  flowed  about  a  mile  from  us— when 
we  came  to  a  part  of  the  country  where  all  the 


108 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


forest  trees — without  exception — were  standing 
for  at  least  a  thousand  acres  around,  dead  and 
bare,  with  the  bark  peeled  off  them,  but  without 
any  marks  'whatever  of  fire  having  been  in  the 
country.  This  was  a  phenomenon  we  were  at 
a  loss  to  account  for,  but  at  the  next  settler's  it 
was  explained  to  us.  About  six  years  ago  a 
hurricane  passed  over  the  country  in  the  month 
of  May,  and  desolated  everything  it  came  near. 
The  sky,  when  passing  over  this  place,  was 
frightfully  black,  and  dipping  down,  discharged 
such  fierce  streams  of  hail  against  the  northern 
side  of  the  forest  trees,  that  all  the  bark  was  de- 
stroyed down  to  the  wood,  and  the  circulation  of 
the  sap  being  destroyed,  every  one  of  the  trees 
died.  The  house  where  we  received  this  infor- 
mation— and  which  had  several  sick  persons  in 
it  at  the  time,  for  the  sake  of  being  near  the  Hot 
Springs — was  unroofed  in  an  instant;  all  the 
poultry  that  were  out  of  doors  were  killed  on  the 
spot,  the  rooms  were  filled  with  rain  and  hail  as 
if  a  river  had  been  pouring  into  it,  and  when  the 
hurricane  passed  away  there,  the  hail  was  two 
feet  deep  on  the  ground.  These  hurricanes,  like 
those  in  the  West  Indies,  sometimes  assume  a 
fearful  character.  I  have  never  been  caught  in 
one  of  the  worst  of  them,  but  their  track  in  the 
forest  which  I  have  sometimes  fallen  in  with, 
presents  a  singular  picture  of  destruction.  I 
nave  come  upon  an  avenue  of  trees  200  yards 
wide,  torn  up  by  the  roots,  and  going  in  a  straight 
line  through  the  country  for  a  short  distance, 
with  the  tops  of  the  trees  laid  uniformly  in  one 
direction ;  then  a  larger  area  would  be  seen  with 
the  trees  twisted  in  a  strange  manner,  broken, 
and  laid  in  every  direction,  as  if  a  whirlwind 
of  immeasurable  force  had  been  expending  itself 
upon  them,  and  had  clashed  the  trees  against 
each  other. 

From  this  place  we  had  nine  miles  to  go  to 
the  Hot  Springs  over  the  sandstone ;  the  road  was 
bad,  and  we  had  to  cross  some  violent  streams, 
especially  one  called  the  Gulfer,  which  we 
achieved  with  some  difficulty;  at  length,  com- 
ing near  a  ridge,  we  turned  into  a  narrow  pas- 
sage or  vale  between  two  lofty  hills,  and  saw  from 
the  appearance  of  things  that  we  had  reached  the 
Hot  Springs  of  the  Washita,  so  much  the  object 
of  curiosity  to  men  of  science,  and  so  little  known 
to  the  world. 

Four  wretched-looking  log  cabins,  in  one  of 
which  was  a  small  store,  contained  all  the  ac- 
commodations that  these  springs  offered  to  trav- 
ellers. We  had  never  seen  anything  worse  or 
more  unpromising  than  they  were,  but  driving 
up  to  the  store,  a  Mr.  Whittington,  who  pur- 
chases bear  skins  and  other  skins  of  wild  animals 
of  the  hunters,  paying  for  them  in  the  commodi- 
ties he  gets  from  Little  Rock,  and  who  did  not 
seem  in  a  very  promising  way  to  the  Lord  Mayor- 
alty of  London,  was  obliging  enough  to  say  we 
might  take  possession  of  one  of  the  log  cabins. 
Having  taken  care  of  our  horse  we  accordingly 
moved  into  the  first  that  we  had  passed  on  our 
arrival.  It  had  a  roof  to  it  as  well  as  a  little  por- 
tico, as  a  defence  against  the  rays  of  the  sun,  but 
this  was  literally  all  that  it  had,  for  not  an  arti- 
cle of  furniture  was  there  either  in  the  shape  of 
table  or  chair.  The  floor  was  formed  of  boards 
roughly  and  unevenly  hewn,  and,  unfortunately, 
some  of  them  were  wanting.  Being  reckoned, 
however,  the  best  lodgings  in  the  place,  we  made 
the  best  of  it,  and  through  our  new  friend  got 
skins,  blankets,  and  other  appliances  to  serve  as 
bedding.  We  next  laid  in  some  firewood  and 


constructed  a  kind  of  table,  so  that  when  we  had 
succeeded  in  borrowing  two  old  chairs,  we  look- 
ed with  some  satisfaction  upon  our  new  attempt 
at  housekeeping.  We  were  sure  at  any  rate  of 
being  alone,  and  of  being  out  of  the  reach  of  filth 
of  every  kind ;  in  fact  it  was  almost  as  desirable 
as  being  in  the  woods,  and  had  the  advantage 
of  shelter.  How  invalids  contrive  to  be  com- 
fortable, who  come  to  this  ragged  place,  I  cannot 
imagine,  yet  I  understand  that  ten  or  a  dozen 
people  are  often  crammed  into  this  room,  which 
my  son  and  myself  found  much  too  small  for 
two.  Persons  who  resort  to  these  springs  in  the 
autumn  might  do  very  well  if  they  brought  with, 
them  their  own  tents  and  a  sack  or  two  of  flour, 
for  meat  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  is  abun- 
dant and  of  good  quality,  which  it  is  not  at  other 
times  when  animals  are  breeding  and  suckling 
their  young. 

Being  impatient  to  see  the  springs  we  sallied 
out,  and  continued  making  our  observations  un- 
til night  fell.  The  narrow  vale  in  which  these 
huts  are  built,  and  which  does  not  exceed  50 
yards  in  breadth,  extends  about  800  yards  nearly 
north  and  south,  and  then  turns  to  the  west.  On 
each  side  of  it  is  a  lofty  ridge  of  sandstone,  and 
other  ridges  close  in  the  view  to  the  north.  At 
the  base  of  the  ridge  to  the  east  is  a  bed  of  clay- 
slate,  upon  which  flows  a  pretty  little  murmur- 
ing stream,  that  takes  its  rise  in  the  hills  to  the 
N.E.,  and  into  which  immense  sheets  of  traver- 
tine descend,  indicating  sufficiently  the  near 
neighbourhood  of  the  springs.  The  ridge  from 
its  base  to  the  top  is  very  ferruginous,  is  about 
450  feet  high,  with  a  steep  inclination,  and  in 
the  upper  part  has  a  good  growth  of  pine  and 
oak  timber.  The  greater  number  of  the  springs 
— which  are  very  numerous — rise  in  the  side  of 
the  ridge,  at  about  one  third  of  the  distance  from, 
its  base,  and  are  found  at  various  points  below, 
and  even  in  the  bed  of  the  stream,  but  there  are 
some  near  300  feet  above  it.  There  is  this  pe- 
culiarity in  the  situation  of  these  Hot  Springs, 
that  if  ever  a  town  should  be  built  in  the  narrow 
vale — which  is  only  100  feet  below  the  most  co- 
pious of  them — the  hot  water,  which  perhaps  has 
a  mean  temperature  of  145°  Fah.,  could  be  con- 
veyed in  spouts  supported  by  frames  into  all  the 
houses  below,  to  be  used  either  as  baths  or  for 
domestic  purposes.  As  these  hot  waters  flow 
down  the  side  of  the  hill,  they  deposit  their  cal- 
careous matter,  which  can  be  traced  down  to  the 
edge  of  the  rivulet.  The  vale  has  perhaps  been 
wider  at  some  remote  period,  for  the  travertine 
extends  back  east  from  the  stream  about  150 
yards  before  it  leans  upon  the  acclivity  of  the 
hill,  and  is  occasionally  100  feet  high,  continuing 
along  the  east  bank  of  the  stream— with  some  in- 
terruption at  intervals — a  distance  of  400  yards; 
sometimes  presenting  abru-pt  vertical  faces  from. 
15  to  25  feet  high,  and  at  other  times  showing 
itself  in  curtains  with  stalactitic  rods,  and  pre- 
senting points  and  coves  advancing  into  and  re- 
ceding from  the  stream. 

Havinggratified  myself  with  these  preliminary- 
observations,  we  returned  to  Mr.  Whittington's 
to  make  the  very  important  inquiry  of  how  and 
where  we  were  to  get  something  to  eat,  and  here 
we  learnt  that  a  Mr.  Percival,  who  lived  in  an- 
other of  the  log;  cabins,  was  the  general  enter- 
tainer of  all  visitors  to  this  place.  He  had  been 
a  hunter,  and  having  seen  the  place  as  early  as 
1807,  had  in  some  year  subsequent  to  that  built 
a  cabin  in  the  vale :  this  fact,  as  he  conceived, 
gave  him  a  pre-emption  claim  of  right  as  pro- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


109 


prietor  of  the  waters,  and  finding  some  advantage 
in  supplying  the  invalids  who  had  now  for  some 
years  resorted  (o  them,  he  had  set  up  a  monop- 
oly as  general  provider  to  all  strangers  who  had 
any  money  in  their  pockets.  To  Mr.  Percival's 
cabin  therefore  we  hied,  and  presenting  ourselves 
at  his  supper-table,  found  a  quantity  of  little 
pieces  of  pork  swimming  in  hog's  grease,  some 
very  badly  made  bread,  and  much  worse  coffee, 
•waiting  for  us.  They  knew  very  well  that  we 
had  no  other  place  to  go  to,  and  had  prepared 
accordingly. 

Nothing  could  be  less  tempting  and  more  rude 
than  the  fare  we  got ;  and  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  supply  of  tea  and  sugar  we  had  laid  in  at 
Little  Rock  our  stomachs  would  have  gone  to 
bed  very  discontentedly.  Percival,  however, 
•was  a  good-natured  man,  could  talk  about  things 
that  interested  us,  and  promised  to  look  up  some 
venison  for  another  time,  so  we  adjourned  to  our 
«abin,  got  up  a  good  fire,  and  laid  down.  In  the 
night  we  were  awoke  by  the  weather,  which  had 
set  in  excessively  stormy,  and  we  found  that  our 
portico,  whatever  its  use  might  be  in  the  sum- 
mer, was  not  upon  duty  at  this  season  of  the 
year,  for  the  wind  came  in  with  such  force  that 
•we  could  scarce  keep  any  of  the  covering  upon 
TIS,  and  I  discovered  that  the  rain  had  been  pour- 
ing upon  me  for  some  time  before  I  awoke.  We 
were  also  mistaken  in  our  calculation  of  being 
alone,  for  it  seems  our  cabin  being  placed  upon 
a  loose  wall  raised  about  a  foot  and  a  half  from 
the  ground,  offered  a  good  shelter  to  the  various 
hogs  belonging  to  the  place,  all  of  which  had 
congregated  immediately  beneath  us,  and  there 
they  were  to  be  sure,  grunting,  and  appearing 
excessively  distressed,  as  hogs  always  are  in 
stormy  weather,  and  having  every  opportunity — 
if  they  were  so  disposed — of  seeing  what  we 
were  doing  through  the  hiatus  wilde  deftzndus, 
•which  separated  every  plank  upon  which  we 
trod.  This  was  our  first  night  at  the  Hot  Springs 
of  the  Washita,  but  happily  we  were  not  inva- 
lids. 

In  the  morning  the  weather  had  cleared  up, 
and  the  sun  broke  out  in  great  force,  so  having 
lighted  our  fire,  and  dried  our  effects,  my  son 
•went  to  the  stream  for  a  pail  of  water  to  make 
our  ablutions.  We  now  found  out  that  we  were 
really  at  the  Hot  Springs,  for  there  was  a  very 
great  difficulty  in  procuring  cold  water,  the 
springs  occupying  a  breadth  equal  to  400  yards 
of  the  base  of  the  ridge,  and  all  of  them — at  least 
thirty-five  in  number — falling  into  the  brook, 
raised  its  temperature  to  that  of  a  warm-bath, 
especially  in  places  where  springs  of  hot  water 
came  through  the  clay  slate.  Finding  this  to  be 
the  case,  I  thought  I  might  as  well  go  to  the 
•water  as  have  the  water  brought  to  me ;  so  ta- 
king my  brushes  and  towels  I  sallied  out,  and  was 
exceedingly  pleased  with  the  picturesque  effect 
produced  upon  the  slope  of  the  ridge  by  the  vol- 
umes of  vapour  proceeding  from  so  many  fu- 
meroles.  A  gentle  smoke  seemed  to  emerge 
from  an  immense  thicket  of  arbnsta  and  young 
plants,  all  of  which,  in  full  leaf  of  a  brilliant 
green,  made  a  fine  contrast  to  the  naked  oaks 
already  stripped  of  their  leaves.  The  water  in 
the  brook  was  pleasantly  tepid,  and  having  no 
one  to  intrude  upon  my  privacy,  I  made  a  pro- 
fuse use  of  it,  and  wading  about  found  that  the 
hot  water  came  through  the  slate  in  an  immense 
number  of  places;  yet  mingling  with  the  water 
of  the  brook  it  did  not  burn  my  feet,  although 
on  the  shore  I  found  that  if  I  insinuated  mv  fin- 


gers a  few  inches  below  the  gravel,  I  was  obliged 
to  withdraw  them  instantly.  Fishes  are  never 
found  in  this  stream  when  the  waters  are  low, 
but  when  it  is  much  raised  by  floods  from  the 
mountains,  then  trout,  perch,  and  other  fish  are 
taken  in  all  parts  of  it.  One  of  the  inhabitants 
told  me  that  towards  the  northern  end  of  the  trav- 
ertine, where  there  was  a  considerable  pool,  he 
had  often  seen  the  fish  gliding  below,  and  that 
upon  such  occasions  when  he  would  throw  a 
few  crumbs  of  bread  in,  they  would  dart  up- 
wards, and  getting  their  noses  into  the  stratum 
of  hot  water  at  the  top,  would  instantly  wheel 
about  and  disappear.  Frogs  and  snakes,  too, 
when  they  fall  into  it  inadvertently,  stretch  them- 
selves out  and  die. 

We  were  so  charmed  with  the  novelty  of  every 
thing  around  us,  that  we  got  some  corn  bread 
and  a  little  milk  from  Mrs.  Percival,  and  sitting 
down  by  one  of  the  springs — the  temperature  of 
which  was  148°  Fahr. — we  made  our  breakfast 
there,  the  water  being  sufficiently  hot  for  the 
purpose,  and  enjoyed  ourselves  very  much.  In 
fact  this  day,  December  30th,  1834,  was  a  memo- 
rable one  in  our  journey,  for  attractive  as  were 
the  terrestrial  rarities  we  were  surrounded  wiih, 
they  were  literally  eclipsed  by  a  celestial  phe- 
nomenon of  the  highest  degree  of  grandeur,  an 
almost  total  solar  eclipse  diverting  for  a  while 
our  attention  from  every  thing  else.  The  eclipse 
here  was  not  total,  for  at  the  period  of  the  great- 
est obscuration  there  was  still  the  appearance  of 
a  slight  luminous  streak  of  the  sun's  body,  which 
gave  a  pale  light  equal  perhaps  in  amount  to 
that  of  two  full  moons ;  the  shadow  of  the  clouds 
waved  on  the  ground  in  a  singular  manner,  and 
the  thermometer  fell  4°  during  the  ten  minutes 
preceding  the  greatest  obscuration  :  the  planet 
Venus,  too,  was  visible  for  near  an  hour,  al- 
though the  occultation  took  place  in  the  middle 
of  the  day.  Take  it  altogether,  it  was  a  very 
solemn  scene. 

As  soon  as  this  had  passed  away,  we  contin- 
ued our  observations  upon  every  thing  around 
us.  and  were  not  a  little  amused  with  the  uses 
the  settlers  made  of  these  waters :  the  facility  of 
obtaining  hot  water  was  fully  appreciated  by 
them,  for  they  never  seemed  to  boil  any  water 
for  any  purpose,  nor  to  drink  any  cold  water:  a 
tree,  smoothed  off  on  the  upper  side,  was  laid 
across  the  stream  at  a  narrow  part,  so  that  they 
could  easily  cross  and  supply  themselves  for  the 
purpose  of  washing  their  clothes,  and  on  a  shelf, 
near  the  door  of  each  cabin,  was  always  a  pail 
of  mineral  water  with  a  gourd  to  drink  it  from. 
Some  of  the  springs  are  quite  tasteless,  others 
have  a  slight  chalybeate  flavour,  but  certainly 
the  first  neither  communicated  a  foreign  taste  to 
tea  or  coffee.  The  highest  temperature  of  these 
springs  at  the  time  1  was  there,  did  not  exceed 
148°,  but  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of  rain 
which  had  no  doubt  lowered  it.  If  there  was  no 
admixture  of  atmospheric  waters,  it  is  probable 
they  would  mark  a'  few  degrees  more ;  indeed 
an  individual  here  with  whom  I  became  ac- 
quainted, showed  me  a  memorandum  which  a 
visitor  had  given  him  during  a  period  of  long 
drought,  where  a  particular  spring  was  noted  at 
156°  Fahr. 

Around  the  sources  of  these  hot  waters  the 
confervas  flourish  remarkably,  but  my  attention 
was  particularly  drawn  to  an  enamelled  lichen- 
looking  substance  of  a  brilliant  green  colour 
which  was  exceedingly  mucilaginous ;  it  was 
not,  however,  a  lichen,  for  I  observed  that  it  be- 


110 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


gan  at  first  by  a  filament,  and  thai  it  went  on 
spreading  and  thickening  until  it  became  half  an 
inch  thick.  In  some  places  it  was  six  inches 
broad.  The  settlers  finding  that  this  substance 
keeps  warm  a  long  time,  and  that  it  feels  soft 
and  comfortable  like  a  new  poultice,  apply  it 
successfully  to  suppurate  wounds.  Where  the 
travertine  forms  so  rapidly  as  to  impede  the  pas- 
sage of  the  water,  and  compels  it  to  take  another 
channel  down' the  hill,  which  it  frequently  does, 
this  glairy-looking  substance,  abandoned  by  the 
hot  water,  entirely  loses  its  colour,  and  dries  up 
into  a  crisp,  thin  film,  always,  however,  preserv- 
ing the  appearance  of  lichen  I  examined  it  in 
this  state  with  a  strong  glass,  and  found  the  centre 
of  it  to  be  calcareous 'matter  of  a  whitish  grey 
colour,  deposited  around  a  slight  filament  of 
grass,  or  any  other  accidental  substance ;  the 
side  next  the  atmosphere  being  of  a  dark  colour 
and  in  a  state  of  decomposition,  whilst  the  under 
side  still  preserved  a  deadish  green  appearance. 
I  made  some  observations  upon  the  gaseous 
contents  of  these  waters,  and  put  some  bottles  of 
them  up,  to  have  their  solid  contents  ascertain- 
ed by  some  competent  person  in  the  Atlantic 
States,  but  the  bottles  got  broke  before  they 
reached  their  destination.*  I  observed  very  lit-- 
tie  gas  escape  from  these  waters  and  their  solid 
contents  were  carbonate  of  lime,  sulphate  of 
lime,  and  a  very  little  iron  in  some  of  the  springs. 
There  are,  however,  reasons  for  supposing  that 
in  ancient  times  the  mineral  constituents  of 
these  springs  have  not  been  exactly  what  they 
are  now.  Being  desirous  of  satisfying  vnysetf 
whether  the  travertine  was  of  an  uniform  qual- 
ity, I  commenced  digging  into  it  about  25  feet 
from  the  level  of  the  brook,  and  having  got  into 
it  somewhat  more  than  a  foot,  I  found  a  great 
increase  of  sulphate  of  lime,  and  much  lower 
down  I  came  to  a  dark  red  oxide  of  iron  in  nodu- 
lar reniform  masses,  taking  a  botryoidal  form. 
The  sulphate  of  lime  was  deposited  in  layers 
from  a  line  to  two  inches  thick.  Beneath  these 
were  masses  of  ferruginous  sandstone  belonging 
to  the  ridge,  which  seemed  to  have  been  at  some 
time  loose,  and  were  now  re-cemented  by  the 
mineral  deposits  from  the  water,  which  had  fill- 
ed up  all  ihe  interstices.  I  took  out  one  of  the 
largest  of  these  nodules,  the  circumferential  crust 
of  which  in  some  parts  was  two  and  a  half  inch- 
es thick,  of  rich  hematite  ore,  whilst  its  interior 
•was  almost  filled  with  gypsum.  From  all  the 
circumstances  connected  with  these  nodules,  I 
was  inclined  to  think  that  they  had  been  depos- 
ited in  ancient  times  by  strong  chalybeate  wa- 
ters, and  that  they  had  become  aggregated  by 
molecular  attraction.  It  was  very  evident  that 
where  the  greatest  quantities  of  red  oxide  were, 
a  stream  of  water  had  passed  for  a  long  period 
of  time,  holding  iron  and  sulphate  of  lime  in  so- 
lution, and  anterior  to  the  period  of  the  present 
waters,  whose  deposits  of  travertine  now  cover 
the  ferruginons  deposits  below.  Nor  is  it  im- 
probable that  springs  of  a  similar  kind  may  yet 
exist,  for  in  a  low  cavity  close  to  the  brook  I 
perceived  a  stream  of  hot  water  with  red  oxide 
near  it,  and  upon  examining  it  minutely  I  found 


*  Dr.  Daubeny  having  in  1837  visited  this  place  and  ex- 
•mii  ed  the  gaseous  contents  of  these  waters  on  the  spot.  1 
quote  from  him,  as  better  authority  than  myself  for  an  anal- 
ysis: 

Carbonic  acid  .  .  .4.0 
Nitrogen  ....  92.4 
Oxygen  •  7.6 

104~ 


the  same  process  going  on,  iron  depositing  on 
the  sides,  and  soft  seams  of  sulphate  of  lime  al- 
ready establishing  themselves.  Whether  this 
chalybeate*  character  in  the  hot  water  of  the  cav- 
ity last  spoken  of  be  not  acquired— as  thermal 
waters  may  acquire  some  of  their  properties,  in 
transitu — is  a  fact  I  would  not  pretend  to  speak 
positively  upon;  many  springs  that  rise  through 
beds  of  decomposed  shale  and  coal  loaded  with, 
sulphuret  of  iron,  undoubtedly  are  often  affected 
as  they  pass  through  them,  and  become  sulphu- 
retted •  but  the  carbonate  of  lime,  and  the  pro- 
digious quantity  of  caloric  which  has  for  such 
immense  periods  of  time  raised  the  temperature 
of  these  springs,  must  have  their  origin  in  'hose 
depths  whence  the  intrusive  rocks,  the  veins  of 
micaceous  iron,  and  various  other  mineral  phe- 
nomena in  this  region,  are  derived. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Curious  and  beautiful  Mineral  structure  of  the  adjacent 
Country — Locality  whence  the  Indians  procured  the  Min- 
eral for  their  Arrow  Heads— An  unsophisticated  "  Bar- 
hunter'' — Panthers  fond  of  Buffalo  Tongues— Strange  sin- 
gle Combat  betwixt  a  Hunter  and  a  male  Buffalo— Rea- 
soning power  of  the  Animal — State  of  the  Hunter's  Nerves 
after  the  battle. 

SOME  person  having  shown  me  specimens  of 
a  kind  of  novaculite  which  they  used  as  hones 
for  their  razors,  I  took  a  guide  to  the  locality 
whence  they  were  procured,  and  after  clamber- 
ing over  a  very  rugged  country  for  three  miles, 
we  came  to  one  of  the  wildest  regions  imagina- 
ble and  singularly  curious.  It  was  altogether 
broken  up  into  short  ridges  and  isolated  cones, 
from  300  to  500  feet  above'the  level  of  the  streams 
that  meandered  amongst  their  bases  in  contract- 
ed gorges  from  15  to  40  yards  wide.  I  had  con- 
stantly observed  in  all  the  rocks  west  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi a  strong  tendency  to  a  siliceous  charac- 
ter associated  with  iron.  In  Missouri  the  sub- 
stitution of  siliceous  for  calcareous  matter  was 
very  striking,  and  it  was  not  less  so  in  the  north- 
ern parts  of  Arkansas.  Ever  since  we  left  Lit- 
tle Red  River  we  had  been  upon  a  quartzose 
sandstone  reposing  on  a  clayey  slate,  and  from 
a  pentramite  which  Mr.  Henderson  assured  me 
he  had  taken  out  of  this  sandstone  near  the 
Mammelles  (the  only  fossil  I  saw),  and  from 
other  considerations,  I  was  disposed  to  consider 
this  sandstone  as  the  equivalent  of  the  old  red 
sandstone  of  Europe.  The  curious  gradations 
of  this  siliceous  matter,  in  the  forms  of  old  red 
sandstone,  flint,  hornstone,  and  quartzose  rock, 
had  interested  me  much:  but  my  admiration  was 
unbounded  when  I  discoverod  that  all  the  ridges 
and  coves  of  the  broken  country  I  was  now  wan- 
dering in,  were  composed  of  a  beautiful  novacu- 
lite of  a  pearly  semitransparent  nature,  indeed 
quite  opalescent  in  places,  lying  in  vertical  lam- 
ina so  brittle  and  so  closely  packed  together,  that 
it  was  very  difficult  to  detach  a  piece  even  six 
inches  long  without  the  aid  of  proper  tools;  but 
when  detached,  the  rock  presented  singularly  pure 
glossy  natural  faces,  and  was  occasionally  tin- 
ged, in  a  very  pleasing  manner,  with  metallic 
solutions.  As  far  as  my  own  experience  and 
information  goes,  the  mineral  structure  of  this 
part  of  the  country  is  as  curious  and  rare  as 
anything  that  has  yet  been  seen. 


*  In  the  last  moments  of  my  stay  at  the  Hot  Springs  I 
found  nodules  of  iron,  similar  to  that  spoken  of.  on  the  west 
side  of  the  hill  whrre  the  springs  are,  and  some  conglom- 
erate firmly  held  together  by  ferruginous  cement. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


Ill 


Ascending  a  very  lofty  hill  composed  entirely 
of  this  mineral,  we  found  several  large  pits,  re- 
sembling inverted  cones,  some  of  which  were 
from  30  to  30  feet  deep  and  as  many  in  diameter, 
the  insides  and  bottoms  of  which  were  covered 
with  chips  of  this  beautiful  mineral,  some  white, 
some  carmine,  some  blue,  and  many  quite  opal- 
escent. In  and  near  these  pits  round  and  long 
pieces  of  hard  greenstone — which  I  had  seen  in 
place  about  18  miles  distant — were  scattered 
about,  but  none  of  them  too  large  for  the  hand. 
These  were  undoubtedly  the  quarries  from 
whence  the  Indians,  when  they  possessed  the 
country,  obtained  the  materials  for  making  their 
arrow  heads  and  spears,  for  those  which  I  had 
found  in  the  ploughed  field  in  Magnet  Cove 
were  made  of  this  mineral.  The  pieces  of  hard 
greenstone  were  the  tools  the  Indians  worked 
with,  and  the  rough  mineral  when  procured  was 
taken  to  their  villages  to  be  manufactured:  I 
had  many  opportunities  subsequently  of  feeling 
assured  of  this,  upon  rinding,  amidst  the  circu- 
lar holes  and  mounds  where  their  now  fallen 
lodges  once  stood,  prodigious  quantities  of  these 
chips  and  arrow  heads  that  had  been  broken  in 
the  act  of  making  them. 

From  this  place  we  scrambled  to  the  top  of 
the  loftiest  cone  we  could  see,  and  had  a  very 
fine  view  of  the  country.  From  the  summit  of 
the  elevation  where  we  stood,  looking  south,  an 
extensive  pine  plain  appeared,  perhaps  eight 
miles  wide,  whilst  on  our  right  to  the  S.S.W., 
about  fifteen  miles  distant,  was  a  ridge  where 
one  of  the  branches  of  the  Washita  rises,  and 
which  circled  round  to  the  E.S.E.,  having  the 
Washita  on  its  north  flank.  Most  of  the  ridges 
seemed  to  curve,  and,  after  running  a  distance 
of  from  two  to  fifteen  miles,  would  terminate. 
To  the  east  we  thought  we  recognised  the  high- 
lands about  the  Mammelle,  which  were  near  for- 
ty miles  in  a  straight  line  from  us. 

Having  made  our  observations  in  this  part  of 
the  country,  I  endeavoured  to  procure  a  guide  to 
cross  the  country  with  us  to  cantonment  Tow- 
son,  a  military  post  of  the  United  States  on  the 
Mexican  frontier,  distant  in  a  straight  line  about 
120  miles.  All  roads  of  every  kind  terminate  at 
the  Hot  Springs;  beyond  them  there  is  nothing 
but  the  unbroken  wilderness,  the  trails  and  fords 
of  which  are  only  known  to  a  few  hunters.  We 
accordingly  entered  into  a  negotiation  with  a 
backwoodsman,  who  was  highly  recommended 
for  his  resolution  and  knowledge  of  the  country ; 
but  he  was  far  from  being  eager  to  engage  in  our 
service,  objecting  that  this  was  the  season  when 
bear-hunting  commences ;  and  although  he  ad- 
mitted that  I  offered  him  more  money  than  he 
could  earn,  yet,  he  said,  if  he  was  to  go,  "he 
couldn't  stand  it,  'case  the  bars  was  so  fat  this 
year."  As  I  could  not  hope  to  compensate  this 
Nimrod  of  the  woods  for  the  enjoyment  he  would 
have  at  his  annual  sport — a  feeling  I  could  ap- 
preciate— I  was  obliged,  though  with  great  reluc- 
tance, to  change  my  plan,  for  I  was  exceedingly 
anxious  to  continue  the  examination  of  these 
siliceous  ridges  to  the  south-west.  This  man 
was  a  very  singular  fellow,  who  shunned  socie- 
ty, was  dressed  altogether  in  the  skins  of  ani- 
mals he  had  killed,  and  seemed  never  to  have 
been  washed,  and  to  have  no  beard.  He  lived 
in  the  woods  many  miles  from  the  Springs,  and 
only  visited  them  when  he  had  bear  and  deer 
skins  to  sell.  He  appeared,  however,  to  take  an 
interest  in  us,  and  advised  us  strongly  not  to  at- 
tempt the  excursion  alone,  for  he  said  that  the 


ordinary  fords  could  not  be  passed  at  this  season 
without  swimming  the  now  swollen  rivers,  and 
that  to  get  through  the  country  we  should  be  obli- 
ged to  go  round  the  heads  of  the  streams,  which 
would  make  the  distance  equal  to  at  least  200 
miles.  Adding  to  these  circumstances  the  cold- 
ness of  the  weather  and  the  extreme  difficulty  we 
should  most  probably  find  in  subsisting  ourselves,, 
we  thought  the  attempt  would  not  be  justifiable, 
and  turned  our  attention  to  a  more  frequented 
and  practicable  route.  The  account  this  man 
gave  me  of  the  manner  in  which  the  bear  is  pur- 
sued by  some  of  the  professed  and  more  opulent 
hunters  was  curious.  He  said  that  some  of 
them,  who  had  great  numbers  of  cattle  roaming; 
at  large  in  the  forests  around  them,  were  so  pas- 
sionately fond  of  the  sport,  that  they  maintained, 
stout  teams  of  dogs  until  the  hunting  season  com- 
menced, by  slaying  beeves  for  them. 

In  summer,  when  there  is  no  mast,  Bruin  is- 
thin  and  hungry,  and  boldly  intrudes  upon  the 
settlements,  where  thtfre  are  any,  to  devour  the 
hogs.  If  the  settler  catches  him  on  his  grounds 
he  kills  him,  but  he  is  too  meagre  and  his  skin, 
is  to  light  to  tempt  him  far  from  home ;  he  choos- 
es another  season  for  that,  when  the  bears  are- 
fat,  can  surrender  a  good  skin  and  from  twenty 
to  twenty-five  gallons  of  oil,  and  have  retired  to 
the  rich  bottoms  where  the  cane-brakes  are. 
Then  out  he  sallies,  prepared  for  an  absence  of 
several  weeks,  dressed  in  a  jacket  and  leggings 
of  buckskin,  for  garments  of  any  other  material 
would  soon  be  torn  from  his  back  by  the  briars. 
When  he  gets  to  the  scene  of  operations  he  kills 
two  or  three  buffaloes,  if  he  can,  for  their  skins,, 
which  he  hangs  up  on  poles  in  the  form  of  a 
tent,  leaving  one  side  open  in  front  of  his  fire,  to- 
wards which  his  feet  are  placed  when  he  sleeps. 
This  is  also  his  storehouse :  his  skins,  his  meat,, 
his  oil,  are  all  deposited  here,  until  their  accu- 
mulation induces  him  either  to  take  them  home 
or  send  them  by  an  assistant.  As  to  what  is 
called  bear's  meat,  it  is  literally  nothing  but  the 
fat  of  the  omentum.  The  fleshy  part  is  all  given 
to  the  dogs.  Of  this  fat,  which  the  hunters  call 
the  fleece,  they  are  ravenously  fond,  preferring  it 
to  everything  else  on  account  of  its  sweet  taste,  ' 
and  because  they  can  eat  a  great  deal  without 
incommoding  themselves.  Occasionally  the 
hunter  regales  himself  with  venison  when  he  is 
in  a  country  where  the  deer  abound,  but  pleasure 
with  him  is  made  subordinate  to  business,  and 
it  will  take  him  as  much  time  to  kill  and  flay  a 
deer  of  the  value  of  one  dollar,  as  it  will  to  se- 
cure a  bear  worth  twenty.  But  bears,  deer,  and 
buffallo  do  not  comprehend  all  the  animals  he 
has  to  deal  with  ;  he  has  to  protect  his  stores 
during  his  absence  from  his  skin-lodge  in  the 
daytime  from  wolves  and  panthers,  and  is  not. 
always  able  to  do  it  even  when  he  is  there,  as 
the  following  anecdote,  so  illustrative  of  the  hunt- 
er's life,  and  which  I  had  directly  from  the  per- 
son it  relates  to,  will  show: — 

This  man  had  amassed  a  great  many  spoils 
in  his  tent,  and  had  put  about  twenty  buffalo 
tongues  in  a  trough  which  stood  inside,  but 
near  to  the  entrance.  One  night  returning  ex- 
ceedingly fatigued,  he  slept  very  soundly,  and  on 
awakening  discovered  that  all  his  buffalo  tongues 
were  gone.  He  was  vexed  at  his  negligence, 
and  imputed  the  theft  to  some  wolves  that  he 
knew  were  prowling  abort.  Having  taken 
something  to  eat,  he  went  to  a  cane-break  in  the 
vicinity,  and  had  not  gone  far  when  he  heard  a 
low  whining  cry,  and,  looking  in  that  direction, 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


toe  saw  something  through  the  thick  canes  play- 
ing about  like  a  cat's  tail,  and  immediately  knew 
it  was  a  panther.  Stealing  forward  and  care- 
fully looking  he  distinguished  a  head  and  ears 
and  concluded  the  animal  was  stretched  upon  a 
log,  a  posture  they  are  very  fond  of  when  they 
are  not  hunting.  Raising  his  gun,  he  fired,  anc 
the  beast,  mortally  wounded,  made  a  prodigious 
jump  and  attempted  to  run,  but  fell  and  died  in 
&  few  minutes.  He  immediately  skinned  it,  anc 
curious  to  learn  whether  this  panther  had  been 
the  midnight  depredator,  he  slit  his  paunch  open, 
•and  there  found  his  buffalo  tongues,  but  by  no 
means  in  a  state  to  be  sent  to  the  London  mar- 
ket. This  man  told  me  that  the  panther  when 
not  hungry  flies  from  man,  and  takes  to  a  tree  il 
the  smallest  dog  pursues  him,  but  when  he  is 
gaunt  and  voracious  he  is  dangerous,  springing 
upon  his  prey  from  a  log  or  branch,  and  even 
darting  through  the  fire  of  the  bivouac  upon  the 
hunter  himself,  who  then  takes  to  his  knife.  He 
said  it  was  a  good  plan  to  put  the  entrails  of  a 
bear  near  the  lodge  at  night  to  "  compliment" 
any  panther  that  might  be  prowling  nigh,  a  piece 
of  politeness  that  no  doubt  would  appear  very 
refined  to  poor  Bruin,  if  he  could  be  made  to  un- 
derstand it. 

But  the  most  interesting  hunter's  story  I  have 
ever  heard  was  told  me  by  our  host,  Mr.  Per- 
cival, who  has  followed  the  forest  chase  from 
his  youth.  In  1807  he  was  on  a  trapping  expe- 
dition with  two  companions  on  the  Washua, 
when  they  left  him  to  kill  buffalo,  bear,  and  the 
larger  game  ;  and  he  remained  to  trap  the  streams 
for  "beaver.  He  had  not  met  with  very  good  suc- 
cess, and  had  been  without  meat  about  twenty- 
four  hours,  when,  turning  a  small  bend  of  the 
river,  he  espied  a  noble-looking  old  male  buffalo 
lying  down  on  the  beach.  Having  secured  his 
canoe,  he  crept  softly  through  a  corn-brake,  which 
lay  between  the  animal  and  himself,  and  fired. 
The  shot  was  an  indifferent  one,  and  only 
•wounded  the  animal  in  the  side,  but  it  roused 
him,  and  having  crossed  the  river  he  soon  laid 
down  again.  This  was  about  noon,  when  the 
animal,  having  grazed,  was  resting  himself  in  a 
cool  place.  Percival  now  crossed  the  river  also 
in  his  canoe,  and  got  into  the  woods,  which  were 
there  very  open,  and  somewhat  broken  by  little 
patches  of  prairie  land,  a  very  frequent  occur- 
rence in  these  parts  of  Arkansas,  where  forest 
and  prairie  often  seem  to  be  contending  for  the 
mastery.  But  the  bull  being  suspicious,  rose 
before  the  hunter  came  near  enough  to  him,  and 
took  to  the  open  woods.  Percival  was  an  ex- 
perienced hunter;  he  had  killed  several  hundred 
buffaloes,  and  knew  their  tempers  in  every  sort 
of  situation.  He  knew  that  the  animal,  when 
in  large  herds,  was  easily  mastered,  and  was 
-well  aware  that  when  alone  he  was  sometimes 
•dogged  and  even  dangerous ;  he  therefore  fol- 
lowed his  prey  cautiously  for  about  a  mile, 
knowing  that  he  would  lie  down  again  ere  long. 
The  buffalo  now  stopped,  and  Percival  got 
•within  fifty  yards  of  him,  watching  an  oppor- 
tunity to  strike  him  mortally;  but  the  beast, see- 
ing his  enemy  so  near,  wheeled  completely  round, 
put  his  huge  shaggy  head  close  to  the  ground  be- 
fore his  fore  feet,  as  is  their  custom  when  they 
attack  each  other,  and  rapidly  advanced  upon 
the  hunter,  who  instantly  fired,  and  put  his  ball 
through  the  bull's  nose;  but  seeing  the  temper 
the  beast  was  in,  and  knowing  what  a  serious 
antagonist  he  was  when  on  the  offensive,  he  also 
immediately  turned  and  fled. 


In  running  down  a  short  nil!  some  briars  threw 
him  down,  and  he  dropped  his  gun.  There  was 
a  tree  not  far  from  him  of  about  eighteen  inches 
diameter,  and  every  thing  seemed  to  depend  upon 
his  reaching  it;  but  as  he  rose  to  make  a  push 
for  it,  the  buffalo  struck  him  on  the  fleshy  part 
of  the  hip  with  his  horn,  and  slightly  wounded 
him.  Before  the  beast,  however,  could  wheel 
round  upon  him  again,  he  gained  the  tree,  upon 
which  all  the  chance  he  had  of  preserving  his 
life  rested.  A  very  few  feet  from  this  tree  grew 
a  sapling,  about  four  or  five  inches  in  diameter, 
a  most  fortunate  circumstance  for  the  hunter,  as 
it  contributed  materially  to  save  his  life.  The 
buffalo  now  doggedly  followed  up  his  purpose 
of  destroying  his  adversary,  and  a  system  of 
attack  and  defence  commenced  that,  perhaps,  is 
without  a  parallel.  The  buffalo  went  round  and 
round  the  tree  pursuing  the  man,  jumping  at 
him  in  the  peculiar  manner  of  that  animal,  every 
time  he  thought  there  was  a  chance  of  hitting 
him;  whilst  Percival,  grasping  the  tree  with  his 
arms,  swung  himself  round  it  with  greater  ra- 
pidity than  the  animal  could  follow  him.  In 
.this  manner  the  buffalo  harassed  him  more  than 
four  hours,  until  his  hands  became  so  sore  with 
rubbing  against  the  rough  bark  of  the  oak  tree, 
and  his  limbs  so  fatigued,  that  he  began  to  be 
disheartened. 

In  going  round  the  tree,  the  buffalo  would 
sometimes  pass  between  it  and  the  sapling;  but 
the  distance  between  them  was  so  narrow,  that 
it  inconvenienced  him,  especially  when  he  want- 
ed to  make  his  jumps;  he  therefore  frequently 
went  round  the  sapling  instead  of  going  inside 
of  it.  The  time  thus  consumed  was  precious  to 
Percival;  it  enabld  him  to  breathe,  and  to  con- 
sider how  he  should  defend  himself. 

After  so  many  hours'  fruitless  labour,  the  bull 
seemed  to  have  lost  his  pristine  vigour,  and  be- 
came slower  in  his  motions:  he  would  now 
make  his  short  start,  preparatory  to  his  jump, 
only  at  intervals;  and  even  then  he  jumped 
doubtingly,  as  if  he  saw  that  Percival  would 
avoid  his  blow  by  swinging  to  the  oilier  side. 
It  was  evident  he  was  baffled,  and  was  consid- 
ering what  he  should  do.  Still  continuing  in 
his  course  round  the  tree,  but  in  this  slow  man- 
ner, he  at  length  made  an  extraordinary  feint 
hat  does  honour  to  the  reasoning  powers  of  the 
buffalo  family.  He  made  his  little  start  as 
usual,  and  when  Percival  swung  himself  round, 
he  bull,  instead  of  aiming  his  blow  in  the  direc- 
ion  he  had  been  accustomed  to  do,  suddenly 
turned  to  that  side  of  the  tree  where  Percival 
would  be  brought  when  he  had  swung  himself 
-ound,  and  struck  with  all  his  might.  The  feint 
rtad  almost  succeeded:  Percival  only  just  saved 
lis  head,  and  received  a  severe  contusion  on  his 
arm,  which  was  paralyzed  for  an  instant.  He 
now  began  to  despair  of  saving  his  life,  his  limbs 
rembled  under  him,  he  thought  the  buffalo  would 
wear  him  out,  and  it  was  so  inexpressibly  pain- 
ty to  him  to  carry  on  this  singular  defence,  that 
at  one  time  he  entertained  the  idea  of  leaving 
he  tree,  and  permitting  the  animal  to  destroy 
lim,  as  a  mode  of  saving  himself  from  pain  and 
anxiety  that  were  intolerable. 

But  the  buffalo,  just  at  that  time  giving  de- 
cided symptoms  of  being  as  tired  as  himself, 
now  stopped  for  a  few  minutes,  and  Percival 
ook  courage.  Remembering  that  he  had  his 
mtcher's  knife  in  his  breast  he  took  it  out,  and 
>egan  to  contrive  plans  of  offence;  and  when, 
te  bull,  having  rested  awhile,  recommenced  his 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


113 


old  rounds,  Percival  took  advantage  of  the  slow- 
ness of  his  motions,  and  using  a  great  deal  of 
address  and  managemenc,  contrived  in  the  course 
of  hal'f  an  hour  to  stab  and  cut  him  in  a  dozen 
different  places.  The  animal  now  became  weak 
from  loss  of  blood,  and  although  he  continued  to 
•walk  round  the  tree  made  no  more  jumps,  con- 
tenting himself  with  keeping  his  head  and  neck 
close  to  it.  This  closed  the  conflict,  for  it  en- 
abled Perciva]  to  extend  his  right  arm,  and  give 
him  two  deadly  stabs  in  the  eyes.  Nothing 
could  exceed  the  frantic  rage  of  the  unwieldy 
animal  when  he  had  lost  his  sight;  he  bellowed, 
he  groaned,  he  pawed  the  ground,  and  gave  out 
every  sign  of  conscious  ruin  and  immitigable 
fury ;  he  leaned  against  the  sapling  for  support; 
and  twice  knocked  himself  down  by  rusrnng 
•with  his  head  at  the  large  tree.  The  second 
fall  terminated  this  strange  tragic  combat,  which 
had  now  lasted  nearly  six  hours.  The  buffalo 
had  not  strength  to  rise,  and  the  conqueror,  step- 
ping up  to  him,  and  lifting  up  his  nigh  shoulder, 
cut  all  the  flesh  and  ligaments  loose,  and  turned 
it  over  his  back.  He  then,  after  resting  himself 
a  few  minutes,  skinned  the  beast,  took  a  part  of 
the  meat  to  his  canoe,  made  a  fire,  broiled  and 
ate  it. 

Of  the  intense  anxiety  of  mind  produced  in 
the  hunter  by  this  conflict,  an  idea  may  be  form- 
ed from  the  fact  that  when  he  joined  his  com- 
panions after  a  separation  of  forty  days,  they 
asked  why  he  looked  so  pale  and  emaciated,  and 
inquired  "if  he  had  been  down  with  the  fever." 
He  then  related  to  them  his  adventure  with  the 
buffalo,  adding  that  from  that  very  evening  when 
he  prevailed  over  the  animal,  he  had  never  got 
any  quiet  rest;  and  so  severely  had  his  nervous 
system  been  shaken,  that  as  soon  as  the  occu- 
pations of  the  day  were  over  and  he  had  lain 
down  to  rest,  the  image  of  the  resolute  and  pow- 
erful animal  always  came  before  him,  putting  his 
life  in  jeopardy  in  a  thousand  ways,  and  cre- 
ating in  him  such  a  desperate  agitation  of  mind, 
that  he  was  constantly  jumping  up  from  the 
ground  to  defend  himself;  such  was  his  state, 
that  he  who  had  been  formerly  proverbial  for  his 
daring  and  resolution,  now  trembled  with  appre- 
hension, even  when  a  covey  of  quails  unexpect- 
edly flushed  before  him.  Mr.  Percival  told  me 
that  three  months  had  elapsed  after  this  adven- 
ture before  his  sleep  became  tranquil,  and  that, 
although  twenty-seven  years  had  now  passed 
away,  every  sudden  noise  would  disconcert  him, 
«ven  if  it  were  the  crowing  of  a  cock.  Ten 
years  ago  he  had  the  curiosity  to  visit  the  place 
•where  so  memorable  a  passage  in  his  life  oc- 
curred, and  he  found  the  bark  of  the  tree  suffi- 
ciently torn  and  abraided  to  have  identified  it, 
even  if  the  bones  of  his  ancient  adversary  had 
not  been  there. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Leave  the  Hot  Springs— Regain  the  "  Military  Road,"  and 
cross  the  Washita— How  to  drink  coffee  made  of  Acorns — 
The  Caclo  River— Mrs.  Barkman,  her  extraordinary  ac- 
complishments— A  Hunter's  House  and  Family — Tertiary 
Deposits — A  Travelling  Court-house — A  Knot  of  Gam- 
blers—A Paddy  going  to  Texas. 

THE  preparations  for  our  departure  having 
been  made,  we  took  leave  of  Mr.  Percival  and 
onr  acquaintances  here  on  the  6th  of  December 
Humble  as  the  lodgings  assigned  to  ourselves 
and  the  hogs  had  been,  and  rude  as  was  our  fare. 


yet  nothing  could  be  more  obliging  than  the  con- 
duct of  every  body  to  us.  None  of  the  cavalieros 
of  Littlfc  Rock  were  here,  we  led  very  quiet  lives, 
and  we  left  the  place  with  our  sincere' good  wishes 
for  the  welfare  of  its  inhabitants.  On  reaching 
the  Gulfer*  we  found  it  very  much  swelled  and 
too  difficult  to  cross  at  the  usual  ford.  We 
therefore  went  a  little  lower  down  and  sounded 
with  a  long  pole.  The  bank  was  two  feet  from, 
the  water,  and  it  was  evident  that  we  must  either 
both  of  us  sit  in  the  waggon  and  make  Missouri 
drop  into  the  flood,  which  was  roaring  furiously, 
at  the  risk  of  all  tumbling  over  together,  or  one 
of  us  must  first  get  into  the  river  to  encourage 
the  horse.  My  son,  therefore,  went  into  the 
stream,  and  I  drove  up  to  the  edge  of  the  bank. 
Our  nag,  though  very  docile,  had  not  nerve 
euough  for  the  noise  the  water  made,  and  all  we 
could  prevail  upon  him  to  do  was  to  slide  down 
with  his  fore-feet  and  lie  down  in  the  shafts, 
leaving  me  in  the  waggon  on  the  bank  at  the 
mercy  of  any  of  his  side-jerks,  the  least  of  which 
would  have  overturned  the  waggon.  As  this 
would  most  probably  have  been  attended  with  the 
loss  of  everything  we  had,  I  felt  very  anxious ; 
but  my  son  coaxing  him  in  front  and  the  whip 
coaxing  him  in  the  rear,  he  suddenly  sprang  up, 
dragged  the  waggon  into  the  river,  and,  taking 
care  to  keep  him  on  the  stretch  in  the  shallow- 
est part  of  the  rapid,  we  happily  succeeded  in. 
getting  to  the  opposite  bank  without  breaking 
anything.  Here  we  stopped  to  change  our 
clothes,  and  then  pursued  our  journey. 

When  we  had  proceeded  eight  miles  from  the 
Hot  Springs,  I  left  the  vehicle,  and  walked  about 
a  mile  to  take  a  look  at  the  Washita,  which  is 
here  a  broad  muddy  stream  flowing  over  the  slate 
through  a  very  picturesque  country.  Four  miles 
farther  on,  in  attempting  to  cross  another  stream 
near  one  Turner's,  we  fairly  upset  our  concern 
amongst  the  hidden  rocks,  but  happily  broke  no- 
thing, though  it  took  us  some  time  to  make  a  fire 
and  put  our  persons  into  a  comfortable  state 
again.  The  traveller  upon  an  excursion  of  this 
kind  finds  it  the  greatest  of  all  evils  to  be  put 
hors  de  combat  as  to  proceeding  on.  As  long  as 
everything  is  new  he  is  delighted;  but  he  has  to 
endure  so  much  privation  when  unexpectedly  de- 
tained— perhaps  in  a  wilderness  which  presents 
no  novelty — that  he  is  ready  to  bear  any  incon- 
venience rather  than  remain  stationary. 

In  the  evening  we  took  up  our  old  quarters  at 
Mrs.  Conway's,  in  Magnet  Cove,  who  received 
us  in  a  very  friendly  manner.  When  we  rose  in 
the  morning  we  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  her 
husband,  who  had  arrived  during  the  night,  and 
of  breakfasting  with  him  ;  after  which,  having 
received  his  direction  for  a  short  cut  to  the 
Washita,  we  made  our  bows,  and,  going  about 
two  miles  through  Ihe  open  pine-woods  at  the 
foot  of  the  exterior  part  of  the  cove,  which  was 
entirely  covered  with  deciduous  trees,  got  into  a 
track  which  led  us  for  eight  miles  through  a  wild 
romantic  flinty  country,  abounding  in  knobs  and 
little  vales  admirably  watered.  Out  of  this  track 
we  emerged  upon  the  Military  Road,  a  mile  and 

*  In  June,  1§33,  when  the  great  rise  of  the  Arkansas  took 
place,  the  backwater  of  the  Mississippi  pressed  upon  Red 
River  and  its  tributaries  so  much,  that  the  waters  of  the 
Washita  covered  all  the  low  country 'through  which  the 
Gulfer  flows.  I  was  informed  by  some  settlers  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood that  for  near  three  weeks  *hey  were  completely 
isolated  ;  the  cows  had  to  swim  backwards  and  forwards 
from  the  uplands  where  they  grazed  to  suckle  their  calves, 
the  lower  floors  of  the  cabins  were  in  the  water,  and  th 
settlers  went  to  the  woods  in  canoes. 


114 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA 


a  half  from  the  ferry  at  the  Washita.  This  fine 
river,  at  the  point  where  we  reached  it,  is  about 
200  yards  broad,  and  the  view  to  the  west  is  very 
beautiful,  a  graceful  little  island  presenting  it- 
self in  the  centre  of  the.  stream,  which  terminates 
in  a  lofty  hill  of  sandstone  covered  with  pines 
and  oaks.  Having  crossed  the  river  in  a  ferry- 
boat, we  found  that  the  road  for  a  considerable 
distance  ran  parallel  with  it,  and  was  exceeding- 
ly wet  and  springy.  At  the  end  of  four  miles 
we  left  this  wet  ground,  and  got  again  upon  a 
sandstone  country  with  high  knolls,  and  continu- 
ed on  it  for  five  miles,  until  we  descended  into  a 
bottom  through  which  a  stream  called  Prairie 
Bayou  runs,  and  here  we  stopped  at  a  settler's 
called  Mitchell. 

This  was  one  of  the  most  wretched  places  we 
had  yet  met  with  in  our  journey.  The  supper  con- 
sisted of  some  pieces  of  dirty-looking  fried  pork, 
corn-bread  eight  days  old,  mixed  up  with  lumps 
of  dirt,  and  coffee  made  of  burnt  acorns  and 
maize  ;  they  had  neither  milk,  sugar,  nor  butter. 
Just  as  we  were  sitting  down  to  it  two  hours  after 
dark,  Colonel  Conway  rode  up:  he  laughed  at 
our  fastidiousness,  and  advised  us  to  drink  some 
of  the  corn- coffee,  which  he  had  often  done  witti 
success  when  he  could  get  nothing  else;  and  he 
showed  us  how  to  get  through  the  operation,  by 
nipping  his  nose  with  his  fingers  and  swallowing 
it  exactly  as  if  it  had  been  castor-oil.  He  left 
us  soon  afterwards,  saying  that  he  was  obliged 
to  ride  the  greatest  part  of  the  night  to  the  place 
where  the  sale  of  government  lands  was  taking 
place.  We  passed  a  wretched  night  on  the  hard 
boards  of  a  sort  of  barrack,  into  which  the  wind 
freely  entered,  and  were  glad  when  morning 
dawned  to  creep  to  the  fire. 

We  now  discovered  that  our  waggon  was  in 
want  of  serious  repairs,  and  that  if  we  advanced 
any  farther  with  it  we  should  probably  break 
down  where  we  could  obtain  no  assistance. 
This  was,  indeed,  a  dilemma,  as  we  had  only 
one  horse  and  no  saddle;  upon  consultation, 
however,  with  our  host,  he  engaged  to  let  Us  have 
a  horse  and  an  old  saddle,  and  sent  to  his  next 
neighbour  to  borrow  another,  upon  securing 
which  we  determined  to  leave  the  waggon  with 
our  trunks  as  a  deposit  until  we  returned  the 
horse.  Our  breakfast  was  in  keeping  with  every- 
thing we  had  found  here ;  so  after  putting  a  few 
things  up  in  a  bag,  we  started  for  the  Caddo 
River,  about  seventeen  miles  off.  For  fourteen 
miles  of  this  distance  our  route  lay  amongst 
sandstone  hills  and  isolated  knolls  of  petro-sili- 
ceous  matter,  many  of  which  approached  in  their 
structure  to  the  novaculite  of  the  Hot  Springs. 
The  streams  were  numerous,  and  some  of  them 
very  much  swelled.  The  Candleberry  Myrtle 
(Myrica  cerifera)  was  exceedingly  abundant  on 
these  knolls,  amongst  which  we  had  constantly 
sorne  deer  in  sight,  besides  numerous  flocks  of 
well-grown  wild  turkeys;  these  often  came  strut- 
ting across  the  road  showing  their  beautiful  glossy 
plumage  to  the  greatest  advantage,  and  on  per- 
ceiving us  would  take  flight  with  as  strong  a 
wing  as  the  wild-goose,  wheeling  around  and 
then  alighting  upon  the  tallest  pine  trees.  It  was 
altogether  a  fine  wild  romantic  ride,  changing 
from  broken  hills  to  numerous  streams — some 
of  which  were  very  much  swollen— that  flowed 
through  limited  bottoms  of  great  fertility. 

Three  miles  before  we  reached  the  Caddo,  the 
country  began  to  descend,  and  a  change  soon 
took  place  in  the  aspect  of  nature,  and  of  every- 
thing around  us.  Having  crossed  the  ferry 


where  the  river  is  about  100  yards  wide,  we  en- 
tered upon  an  extensive  rich  bottom  of  cane- 
brake,  and  not  long  after  came  to  a  no  less  ex- 
traordinary thing  than  a  brick  house,  belonging 
to  a  person  of  the  name  of  Barkman.  This 
man,  whose  father  was  a  German,  came  into  the 
country  many  years  ago  in  the  character  of  a. 
pedlar,  and  having  married  the  daughter  of  one 
Davis,  a  famous  hunter,  settled  here,  became  a 
trader,  and  was  now  very  well  to  do  in  the  world. 
In  the  mean  time  old  Davis  and  his  sons — all  of 
whom  were  brought  up  without  any  other  school- 
master than  the  rifle— continued  their  favourite 
wandering  vocation,  looking  up  to  the  opulent 
Barkman  as  the  great  man  of  the  family.  Mr. 
Barkman  we  did  not  see,  but  1  shall  certainlv 
not  forget  his  lady  soon,  as  I  have  never  seen 
any  one,  as  far  as  manners  and  exterior  went, 
with  less  pretensions  to  be  classed  with  the  fem- 
inine gender.  All  her  accomplishments  seem- 
ed to  me  to  have  a  decided  learning  the  other 
way.  She  chewed  tobacco,  she  smoked  a  pipe, 
she  drank  whiskey,  and  cursed  and  swore  as 
heartily  as  any  backwoodsman,  all  at  the  same 
time;  doing  quite  as  much  vulgarity  as  four 
male  blackguards  could  do,  and  with  as  much 
ease  as  if  she  had  been  an  automaton  set  to  do- 
it with  clockwork  machinery.  She  must  have 
been  a  person  of  surprising  powers  in  her  youth, 
for  I  was  informed  that  she  was  now  compara- 
tively refined  to  what  she  had  been  before  her 
marriage  ;  at  that  period,  so  full  of  interest  to  a 
lover,  she  was  commonly  known  by  the  name 
of  old  Davis's  "She  Bar.'" 

We  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  one  of  her 
extraordinary  brothers,  a  genuine  hunter,  dress- 
ed in  leather  prepared  by  himself  from  the  skins 
of  animals  he  had  killed,  as  he  was  going  with 
his  rifle  on  his  shoulder,  and  his  dogs,  some 
twenty  miles  off  to  hunt  bears.  This  man,  al- 
though between  thirty  and  forty  years  old,  had 
never  been  out  of  this  neighbourhood,  and  had 
no  idea  of  the  world  beyond  his  own  pursuits, 
and  that  which  he  saw  going  on  around  him. 
His  brother-in-law  Barkman  he  considered  to 
be  the  first  man  in  the  whole  country ;  people 
that  came  from  Little  Rock  he  had  not  a  strong 
oredilection  for,  not  because  they  were  unworthy, 
3ut  because  so  many  lawyers  lived  there;  the 
government  of  the  United  States  he  looked  upon 
with  horror,  because  they  sold  the  lands  and 
aroke  up  the  cane-brakes  :  but  Texas  he  appro- 
ved of  highly,  saying  that  he  had  "  heern  there 
was  no  sich  thing  as  a  government  there,  and 
not  one  varmint  of  a  lawyer  in  the  hull  place." 
As  his  house  was  not  very  far  from  Barkman's, 
I  accompanied  this  worthy  there  to  see  it,  and 
on  our  way  had  a  good  deal  of  curious  conver- 
sation with  him,  learning  from  him  amongst 
Dther  things  that  he  had  "  been  raised  on  fat  bar's 
meat,"  as  all  his  family  had  been,  and  that  he 
oved  it  better  than  anything.  The  cabin  of  this 
ellow  corresponded  with  his  manners,  and  was 
a  sort  of  permanent  camping  out  of  doors ;  the 
logs  of  it  were  at  least  six  inches  apart,  the  in- 
;erstices,  without  any  filling  in,  staring  wide 
open;  one  of  the  gable  ends  was  entirely  want- 
ing, the  roof  was  only  closed  at  one  end,  and  at 
:he  other  some  bed  clothes  were  heaped  togeth- 
er in  a  corner  upon  a  rough  floor,  and  his  fami- 
y,  consisting  of  a  wife  and  several  young  chil- 
dren, were  warming  themselves  at  a  fire — not  in 
'.he  house,  but  out  of  doors.  How  they  managed 
during  long  periods  of  cold  wet  weather  may  be 
magined,  but  they  all  seemed  contented,  and 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


115 


even  cheerful.  As  to  himself,  he  seemed  quite 
itnlirtereni  about  this  al-fresco  style  of  living:  his 
happiness  was  found  only  in  the  cane-brake 
•Si living  the  bars  about,"  as  he  said,  and  sleep 
ing  near  a  good  fire.  Mrs.  Barkman,  notwith- 
standing her  habits,  was  not'  deficient  in  good 
man  re  to  us:  they  had  killed  a  young  steer  the 
day  beibre  our  arrival,  and  a  dish  of  fat  boiled 
ribs  was  set  before  us,  with  good  bread,  of  which 
we  made  an  excellent  meal,  having  been  with- 
out food  ever  since  we  left  Mrs.  Conway's  the 
morning  before. 

This  place  is  the  site  of  an  ancient  village  of 
the  Caddo  Indians;  a  large  mound  with  trees 
growing  on  it,  and  other  indications  of  their  res 
i'dence,  still  exist  there;  and  a  sweet  sequester- 
ed situation  it  must  have  been  to  them,  for  the 
river  contains  good  fish,  the  country  abounds  in 
game,  and  the  sandstone,  with  its  pines,  is  here 
exchanged  for  a  loose  soil  of  the  greatest  fertili- 
ty, and  deciduous  trees  peculiar  to  these  latitudes. 
O«  sallying  out,  after  our  good  cheer,  we  were 
exceedingly  pleased  with  the  scene  around  us; 
the  sun  was  shining  brilliantly,  flocks  of  parro- 
quets  were  wheeling  and  screaming  around,  and 
the  trumpet  tone  of  the  ivory-billed  woodpecker 
was  frequently  heard. 

On  examining  the  bed  of  the  Caddo,  I  found 
it  consisted  of  tertiary  limestone,  exactly  the 
same  as  that  I  had  seen  at  Little  Rock,  and  pro- 
cured some  good  specimens  of  turritella  and  oth- 
er fossils.  The  Caddo  empties  into  the  Washita, 
'u<>  miles  below  Barkman's,  and  about  four 
niles  farther  down  I  was  informed  there  were 
•  lie  salt  wells  from  which  he  annually  makes 
,">od  deal  of  salt.  The  wells  are  dug  through 
l)l;sck  soil,  but  whether  the  brine  comes  through 
lower  rock,  or  they  have  had  to  bore  into  one, 
i.o  one  could  explain  to  me:  the  process  of  ma- 
king it,  however,  seems  to  be  a  very  rough  one, 
and  the  salt  produced  is  dirty  and  imperfect. 
Prom  the  account  they  gave  me,  the  brine  in  the 
wells  is  so  diluted  with  the  water  from  the 
Washita,  that  it  takes  150  gallons  of  water  to 
make  one  bushel  of  bad  salt.  There  is  also  said 
to  lie  gypsum  about  six  miles  off,  near  one  Will- 
iams's,  in  the  "rotten  limestone"  which  they 
said  overlaid  the  whole  country. 

From  Barkman's  we  proceeded  to  the  Tour- 
noise  Creek,  said  to  be  15  miles  off,  always  upon 
flat  good  land,  occasionally  sandy,  with  heavy 
beds  of  a  bluish  green  calcareous  clay  in  all  the 
ravines;  and  from  the  description  I  obtained  of 
the  country  farther  to  the  south,,!  thought  it 
probable  we  should  keep  upon  the  tertiary  beds 
all  the  way  to  the  Mexican  frontier.  We  found 
no  fossils  nor  casts  of  shells  in  the  blue  clay, 
which  strongly  resembles  some  of  the  beds  ex- 
tending from  Richmond,  in  Virginia,  down  to 
Shirley,  on  James  River,  where  the  clay  con- 
tains lumps  of  calcareous  matter  with  traces  of 
sulphate  of  lime.  We  crossed  several  large 
creeks  during  the  afternoon,  and  at  night  put  up 
at  a  famous  hunter's  called  Hignife,  who  lived 
in  a  solitary  log  cabin  that  had  once  been  the 
court-house  for  the  county  of  Clark.  From  the 
conspicuous  manner  in  which  the  word  "  Crit- 
tenden"  appeared  upon  our  maps  as  the  princi- 
pal county  town,  I  had  formed  some  slight  ex- 
pectations of  seeing  something  a  little  out  of  the 
way,  and  of  getting  some  sort  of  lodgings  for  a 
day  or  two  to  look  at  the  country:  all  this  after- 
noon we  had  been  expecting  to  arrive  at  Crit- 
tenden  in  vain,  and  indeed  thought  of  inquiring 
at  an  old  cabin  we  passed,  how  far  it  was  ahead 


of  us.  but  not  wishing  to  lose  time,  we  drove  on 
until  we  came  to  Hignite's.  Our  first  question 
was,  "  How  far  is  it  to-  Crittenden  1".  The  an- 
swer we  received  was,  that  the  old  cabin  we  had 
passed  five  miles  back  was  Crittenden,  that  it 
had  been  once  at  his  house,  but  that  he  believed 
it  was  going  to  be  at  Cfreenville.  Finding  that 
Crittenden,  like  the  house  of  Loretto,  was  a  non- 
resident, we  determined  to  stop  where  we  were, 
especially  when  we  found  we  were  at  a  hunter's 
whose  name  had  already  reached  us. 

This  bandying  about  of  court-houses  is  ins«p- 
arable  from  such  a  state  of  the  settlements  in 
this  new  country  as  requires  some  administra- 
tion of  law.  The  counties  are  tsn  times  as  large 
as  they  are  eventually  destined  to  be,  and  every- 
thing is  a  matter  of  expediency  until  population 
fills  up  the  space  a  little.  Before  there  are  any 
county  towns  or  court-houses,  the  cabin  of  some 
settler  is  made  temporarily  the  court-house,  which 
is  changed  from  place  to  place  to  accommodate 
those  at  a  distance;  and  as  the  population  in- 
creases, new  counties  are  set  off  from  the  old 
one,  into  territories  sufficiently  compact  to  con- 
stitute a  county  where  every  man  can  live  con- 
tentedly, bearing  his  share  of  the  taxes  and  the 
public  duties. 

On  entering  Hignite's  we  found  several  sportsr 
men  there — not  powder-and-shot  sportsmen,  but 
knights  of  the  faro  and  rouge  et  noir  tables.  The 
principal  person  was  the  Mr.  Tunstall  whose 
house  we  had  passed  a  little  south  of  White 
River.  My  host,  old  Meriwether,  had  let  us  a. 
little  into  his  character,  which  had  been  confirm- 
ed to  me  by  others.  He  was  said  to  be  a  very 
enterprising  man,  to  possess  some  property,  but 
to  indulge  excessively  in  horse-racing  and  cards. 
We  had  heard  also  that  he  generally  travelled 
with  some  persons  who  passed  for  travellers  like 
himself,  but  who,  in  fact,  were  in  his  pay,  for 
the  purpose  of  inciting  others  to  play  and  to  pro- 
cure him  bets.  The  moment,  therefore,  our  host 
told  me  that  "  Tunstall  was  in  his  house,"  I  was 
fully  prepared  for  the  scene  that  followed. 

Whilst  supper  was  preparing,  Mr.  Tunstall 
entered  into  conversation  with  me,  stating  that 
he  had  been  at  some  races  where  the  sale  fas 
government  lands  on  Red  River  was  in  prog- 
ress, but  that  it  "was  dull  times,"  for  people 
seemed  to  be  thinking  of  nothing  but  going  to 
Texas.  His  conversation  was  sensible  and  en- 
tertaining, and  he  evidently  wanted  to  inspire 
roe  with  a  favourable  opinion  of  himself:  the 
other  men  in  the  house  kept  themselves  silent,, 
and  appeared  to  know  as  little  about  him  as  they 
did  about  us.  This  was  rather  over-acting  their 
part,  and  I  began  to  suspect  their  intentions.  As 
oon  as  we  had  supped,  and  drew  near  to  the 
fire,  one  of  the  company,  who  hau  all  the  marks 
of  a  broken-down  swell  about  hi'm,  vent  to,  a 
box,  and  taking  out  some  cards,  laid  uT™1  ver^ 
artistically  down  on  the  table.  Upon  which 
after  awhile,  two  others  went  to  the  table,  one 
of  them  saying  in  a  drawling  tone,  "  I  reckon  I'll 
take  a  hand."  But  Mr.  Tunstall  seeing  that  we 
did  not  even  look  at  the  party,  remained  with  us. 
at  the  fire,  and  it  was  some  time  before  he  turn- 
ed to  me,  and  in  a  very  winning  manner  said, 
"  Well,  I  don't  care  if  I  take  a  hand,  if  you  (Jo." 
[  told  Mr.  Tunstall  that  we  were  both  very  much 
fatigued,  and  should  go  to  bed  as  soon  as  we 
knew  where  we  were  to  sleep.  One  of  the  fel- 
pws  at  the  table  now  said,  "Mister,  if  you  pre- 
fer roulette,  I'll  take  one  out  of  the  box  what  IVe 
got  here."  Tunstall,  perceiving  ^at  this  was 


116 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA 


letting  the  cat  out  of  the  bag  too  early,  said  no 
more  to  me  about  playing,  but  sat  down  to  faro 
with  the  rest,  and  they  all  pretended  to  be  play- 
ing very  earnestly.  They  had  not  played  off, 
however,  their  last  coup  upon  me,  and  in  about 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  Mr.  Tunstall  went  to  a  box 
belonging  to  himself,  and  took  out  a  runlet  con- 
taining brandy :  pouring  some  of  it  out,  he  very 
courteously  offered  it  to  myself  and  my  son.  I 
made  him  my  acknowledgments,  but  said  that 
•we  were  not  in  the  habit  of  drinking  brandy  or 
any  kind  of  spirituous  liquors;  that  we  were  al- 
ways happy  when  we  could  get  milk,  and  never 
wanted  anything  else.  After  this  milksop  dec- 
laration, Mr.  Tunstall  seemed  to  think  us  worth 
no  further  attention  ;  he  poured  the  brandy  back 
into  the  runlet,  without  offering  any  to  the  other 
gentlemen  travellers,  and  they  put  their  cards 
back  again  into  the  box,  for  it  seemed  somehow 
as  if  the  game  could  not  proceed  unless  we  join- 
ed in  it. 

Such  a  coarse  trap,  and  set  in  such  a  coarse 
manner,  was  fitted  for  such  low  gamblers  as 
these,  who  have  an  idea — perhaps  justified  by 
their  success — that  no  man  can  resist  cards  and 
brandy.  We  passed  the  night  miserably,  stretch- 
ed on  some  wretched  boards  in  the  same  room 
with  these  fellows,  but  taking  especial  care  of 
our  purses  and  bag.  The  voice  and  language 
of  one  of  these  men,  who  was  called  Smith — 
perhaps  an  assumed  name — were  those  of  a 
northern  man ;  I  was,  therefore,  disposed  to  be- 
lieve him  when  he  said  he  was  a  New  Yorker: 
he  had  a  haggard  and  very  unhappy  appearance, 
with  a  sinister  expression,  and  seemed  altogether 
devoted  to  Mr.  TunstaH,  in  whose  base  service 
perhaps  he  had  consciously  reached  the  lowest 
stage  of  human  degradation. 

In  the  morning,  these  contemptible  wretches 
sat  down  at  the  same  table  with  us  to  breakfast; 
their  conversation  was  infamous,  and  accorded 
well  wiih  their  degraded  condition.  They  had 
evidently  been  engaged  in  all  sorts  of  frauds  and 
villanie*,  and  seemed  to  glory  in  their  infamy. 
A  kind  of  waggon,  belonging  to  Tunstall,  now 
c;nne  to  the  door,  with  two  negro  boys  belonging 
to  him,  who  had  acted  as  jockeys  at  the  races. 
Into  this  they  all  got,  and  Mr.  Tunstall — who 
had  pretended  the  preceding  evening  that  he  was 
a  stranger  to  the  other  men — could  not  avoid 
seeing  that  I  was  aware  he  was  the  head  of  a 
t-ravt- Iling  gang  of  sharpers.  A  short  time  before 
they  drove  from  the  door,  a  foolish  Irishman, 
who  was  going  to  Texas,  rode  up  on  a  neat 
sprightly  poriv  that  had  a  great  many  good 
points.  Tunstall  offered  to  swap  a  huge  raw- 
boned  animal,  which  one  of  his  negro  boys  rode, 
fbr  this  pony,  telling  the  Irishman  "it  was  worth 
tfiree  times  as  much,  but  he  somehow  liked  the 
appearance  of  «V>*  nonv."  Taking  Paddy  into 
Is"  House,  they'plie'd  hi.,  with  brandy  until  his 
discreti'"  ecame  endan^  '  ,-d  by  the  dimensions 
of  the  horse  :  it  was  evir1  f  when  he  came  out, 
thai  to  be  at  the  top  of  suai  "  a  baste"  was  run- 
nin<*  in  his  l^ead.  Hignite  endeavoured  to  make 
him  prudent,  and  told  him  if  his  ponv  was  a 
good  one  he  had  better  stick  to  him.  The  poor 
silly  fellow  hesitated  for  a  moment,  ana  just 
whe«!  we  were  hoping  he  would  be  wise,  brandy 
and  ambition  got  the  better  of  him,  and  he  said, 
"Well,  I'll  just  take  ye  at  your  word."  No 
time  was  lost;  saddles  were  exchanged,  and  the 
gamblers  drove  off  with  a  horse  laugh.  Within 
twenty  minutes  after  their  departure,  the  brandy 
having  evaporated  a  little,  Hignite  had  perfectly 


persuaded  Paddy  that  the  "big  baste"  was  foun- 
iered  all  to  nothing,  and  was  not  worth  more 
than  six  dollars.  I  should  certainly  have  imer- 
?ered,  ar.A  perhaps  have  prevented  this  piece  of 
tnavery,  if  I  had  not  found  out,  by  the  conver- 
sation of  Paddy,  that  he  was  a  "  no-government" 
man,  and  was  sure  to  do  something  more  absurd 
if  any  body  would  take  the  trouble  to  make  him 
drunk  again. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

ear-hunting— Approach  a  subcretaceous  Country — Judge 
Cross— Disputed  Territory  betwixt  Mexico  and  the  Uni- 
ted States— A  Prairie  Country  and  subcretaceous  Fossils 
—General  Houston— Plot  to  wrest  Texas  from  Mexico- 
Beauty  of  the  Country. 

THIS  morning  had  been  appointed  by  Hignite, 
our  host,  to  go  on  his  great  annual  bear-hunt;  he 
was  a  well-known  hunter,  and  we  had  found 
aim  an  honest,  soberly-disposed  person.  We 
lad  witnessed  his  preparations,  and  saw  with 
admiration  how  perfectly  he  was  prepared  to 
supply  all  his  wants  during  his  absence,  without 
assistance  from  any  one.  His  dress  consisted  of 
a  hunting  jacket  and  leggings,  made  of  skins 
tanned  by  himself,  and  secured  by  strings  formed 
either  of  the  same  materials  or  the  integuments 
of  animals.  He  had  a  close  cap  on  made  of 
skin,  a  girdle  round  his  waist,  in  which  were 
stuck  his  hatchet  and  his  butcher's  knife,  and  a 
heavy  rifle  weighing  sixteen  pounds  on  his 
shoulder.  He  had  two  pack-horses  to  carry  In- 
dian corn  ibr  their  subsistence,  some  necessary 
articles  for  himself,  and  to  bring  back  the  returns 
of  his  hunting.  The  most  important  part  of  his 
retinue  consisted  of  eight  dogs,  which  he  valued 
very  highly,  especially  the  old  ones,  on  account 
of  their  great  sagacity  and  prudence.  This  kind 
of  sport  is  so  captivating  that  we  would  willingly 
have  accompanied  him,  if  it  would  not  have  oc- 
casioned such  a  deviation  from  our  plans,  and 
have  taken  up  so  much  time.  As  Hignite  was 
going  part  of  our  road,  I  was,  therefore,  obliged 
to  content  myself  with  drawing  from  him  a  de- 
tailed account  of  the  nature  of  one  of  these  ex- 
peditions. 

The  Washita,  in  its  course  to  the  south-east 
to  join  Red  River,  has  in  many  places  an  im- 
mense margin  of  cane-brakes,  six  or  more  miles 
broad  on  each  side,  and  which,  before  it  reaches 
the  point  of  junction,  are  of  much  greater  mag- 
nitude. These  rich  bottoms,  which  are  covered 
with  stout-jointed  canes  twenty  feet  high,  as 
thick  as  they  can  stand,  can  never  be  reclaimed 
until  a  system  of  levies  or  embankments  is  es- 
tablished to  keep  them  from  being  inundated. 
Into  these  brakes  the  bears  (Ursus  Amci~icanus), 
being  now  excessively  fat  with  the  mast  they 
have  been  living  upon  the  whole  autumn,  retire 
in  the  month  of  December,  making  huge  beds  for 
themselves  of  the  cane,  and  lying  there  four  or 
five  months.  The  hunters,  however,  assert  that 
in  this  climate  that  animal  does  not  doze  away 
the  whole  of  this  long  period,  but  that  he  walks 
out  in  fine  weather,  although  he  does  not  eat. 
Some  of  them  had  ceased  to  eat  even  when  I 
was  on  the  Caddo,  for  Mrs.  Barkman's  brother 
told  me  that  he  had  killed  a  barren  she-bear  with 
clean  intestines,  and  that  he  knew  thereby  that  the 
season  had  arrived  for  their  going  into  the  cane- 
brakes. 

When  the  hunter  arrives  near  the  scene  of  his 
operations  and  has  fixed  his  camp,  he  generally 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


117 


first  tries  the  higher  woodlands  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  brakes,  not  far  from  some  place 
where  a  hurricane  has  uprooted  the  trees,  and 
where  brambles,  shrubs,  and  other  plants  are 
growing  amongst  them,  these  being  situations 
which  the  bears  love  to  resort  to.  Having  col- 
lected wood  for  fuel,  he  makes  a  lodge  with 
poles  and  bushes  sufficient  to  keep  the  weather 
out,  hopples  his  horses  to  prevent  their  straying 
far,  and  puts  a  bell  round  the  neck  of  one  of 
them.  Iteing  perfectly  prepared  he  enters  upon 
his  ground,  the  breeze  comes  tainted  with  the 
scent,  the  dogs  holding  up  their  heads  snuff  it  in, 
and  the  old  ones  warily  take  the  lead.  They 
find  Master  Bruin,  ponderous  with  acorns,  more 
disposed  to  lie  still  than  to  run ;  but  the  hunter, 
soon  hearing  by  the  voices  of  his  dogs  that  they 
are  closely  engaged,  hurries  on.  He  finds  the 
angry  brute  hastening  away  from  his  assailants, 
after  perhaps  putting  more  than  one  of  the  young 
ones  hors  de  combat,-  but  the  old  dogs  seize  him 
by  the  haunch  behind,  and  leave  and  head  him 
the  moment  he  turns  round  to  avenge  himself. 
His  enemies  now  encircle  him ;  wherever  his 
rear  is,  it  is  sure  to  be  bit:  he  can  no  longer  fly, 
and  furious  with  rage  he  dashes  at  the  most  for- 
ward, seizes  him,  grasps  him  with  his  muscular 
fore-paw,  gives  him  the  fraternal  hug,  and  fin- 
ishes him  sometimes  by  applying  his  powerful 
tusks.  The  rest  of  the  dogs  now  throw  him 
down,  jump  upon  him,  and  the  hunter,  to  save 
his  dogs  from  being  killed,  watches  his  moment, 
goes  rapidly  behind  the  bear,  grasps  a  handful  of 
his  fur  with  his  left  hand  to  prevent  his  turning 
to  bite  him,  and  "sarves  him  home"  with  his 
sharp  butcher's  knife.  After  a  short  struggle,  the 
beast  dies. 

At  other  times  the  hunter  waits  until  the  dogs 
have  got  him  into  a  good  position,  and  lodges  a 
rifle-ball  under  his  fore-arm.  The  bears  are  im- 
mediately skinned,  and  the  fleece,  consisting  of 
the  lard  from  which  the  oil  is  extracted,  is  se- 
cured. The  lean  parts  are  kept  for  the  dogs,  and 
the  hunter  himself  if  he  likes  them,  every  thing 
being  secured  from  the  wolves  by  hoisting  the 
meat  into  some  tree,  if  the  animal  has  been  kill- 
ed too  far  from  camp  to  get  it  there  by  daylight. 
Such  is  the  account  I  received  from  one  of  the 
most  experienced  bear-hunters,  who  frequents 
the  brakes  of  the  Washita. 

From  Hignite's  we  pursued  our  journey  in  a 
south-west  direction,  over  good  bottom  land,  with 
a  great  abundance  of  holly  and  laurel  growing  in 
every  direction,  occasionally  coming  upon  hills 
of  moderate  elevation  of  sandstone,  with  pine 
trees,  all  the  streams  being  transparent,  and  hav- 
ing gravelly  bottoms.  At  the  end  of  a  ride  of 
eighteen  miles  the  country  descended  again,  and 
we  perceived  that  we  were  approaching  the  Lit- 
tie  Missouri,  a.  considerable  stream  which  rises 
to  the  N.W.,  empties  into  the  Washita,  and  has 
received  its  name  from  its  waters  being  of  a 
dusky  red  muddy  colour,  like  those  of  the  great 
Missouri. 

We  crossed  the  river  in  a  ferry  boat,  the  wa- 
ters being  high,  and  then  entered  upon  a  close 
low  bottom,  densely  covered  with  cane,  laurel, 
holly,  arid  swamp  timber  of  every  kind,  which 
lasted  for  three  miles.  It  was  intersected  by  nu- 
merous bayous,  over  which,  it  being  the  military 
road,  nine  bridges  had  been  erected,  five  of  which 
were  impassable  owing  to  the  greater  part  of  the 
thick  planks,  which  formed  their  floors,  not  hav- 
ing been  secured  by  pegs  or  tree-nails,  so  that 
they  had  floated  away  the  very  first  inundation. 


tt  was  evident  that  this  had  been  purposely  neg- 
ected  by  the  contractors  who  built  the  bridges, 
hat  they  might  make  a  second  job  out  of  it. 
In  this,  however,  they  appear  to  have  been  dis- 
appointed, and  the  consequence  has  been,  that 
the  persons  who  have  emigrated  to  Texas  by 
this  route  have  taken  that  part  of  the  flooring  off 
which  remained,  and  put  it  in  the  shallowest 
part  of  the  bayous,  to  enable  them  to  cross  the 
bayous  in  safety  with  their  heavy  waggons. 
Thus  have  the  provident  cares  of  the  United 
States  government  been  frustrated,  travellers 
placed  in  great  danger,  and  a  state  of  things  pro- 
duced which  in  a  short  time  will  render  this 
route  impracticable  ;  for  although  this  military 
road,  opened  at  so  great  an  expense  by  the  gov- 
ernment, has  been  made  the  county  road  in  the 
counties  it  passes  through,  the  overseers  of  the 
road  pay  no  attention  to  it,  and  far  from  repair- 
ing the  floors  of  the  bridges,  will  not  even  cut  a 
tree  out  when  one  falls  across  the  road.  This 
low  bottom  lasted  three  miles,  and  on  emerging 
from  it,  the  country  began  to  rise  a  little  again. 
As  we  advanced,  a  new  kind  of  soil  appeared  of 
a  singularly  waxy  nature,  and  a  dark  black  car- 
bonaceous colour,  such  as  I  had  not  seen  before, 
except  on  the  surface  of  the  travertin,  at  the  hot 
springs,  where  it  abounds;  and  here  the  soil  was 
like  that,  accompanied  with  a  profusion  of  dead 
land  shells. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  we  made  the  unpleasant 
discovery  that  the  horse  we  had  obtained  of  our 
host,  Mitchell,  was  foundered,  and  that  it  would 
be  impossible  to  proceed  on  with  him.  This  was 
rather  a  distressing  affair,  for  he  was  a  dead 
weight  upon  our  hands,  and  the  farther  we  went 
with  him,  the  greater  would  be  our  difficulty  in. 
returning  him  to  his  owner.  His  lameness,  too, 
was  evidently  chronic  ;0so  that,  in  fact,  we  had 
no  security  whatever  for  our  waggon  and  lug- 
gage, which  was  not  a  pleasant  reflection.  After 
some  deliberation,  my  son  proposed  returning 
with  him,  and  letting  me  proceed  on,  trusting  to 
be  able  to  make  some  other  arrangement  to  join. 
me  again.  Mitchell,  too,  having  told  him  that 
he  was  going  out  on  a  panther  hunt  to  a  place 
frequented  by  several  of  these  animals,  he  was 
not  sorry  to  have  an  opportunity  of  accompany- 
ing him,  as  he  had  a  strong  desire  to  see  a  little 
of  that  kind  of  sport  before  we  left  this  part  of  the 
country ;  so  after  sharing  each  other's  privations 
and  being  most  faithful  and  inseparable  compan- 
ions to  each  other  for  four  months,  we  shook 
hands.  My  son,  with  his  rifle  on  his  shoulder, 
and  leading  the  lame  horse,  took  one  way,  and  I 
the  other. 

After  riding  about  seven  miles  through  a  pretty 
good  country,  I  turned  off  to  the  left  to  a  gentle- 
man's of  the  name  of  Judge  Cross,  to  whom  I 
had  a  letter  of  introduction.  He  was  a  judge 
under  the  United  States  government,  and  had 
federal  jurisdiction  as  far  as  the  Mexian  frontier. 
The  house  was  on  a  knoll  about  half  a  mile  from 
the  road,  and  I  reached  it  a  little  after  dark. 

Fastening  my  horse  to  a  paling  which  sur- 
rounded a  neat-tooking  wooden  house,  built  upon, 
the  double  cabin  plan,  I  entered  the  courtyard, 
and  then  the  open  space  that  separates  the  two 
cabins.  There  was  a  cheerful  light  in  the  room 
to  the  right,  and,  knocking  at  the  door  with  a 
pilgrim's  feeling,  I  modestly  entered  a  neat  par- 
lour, and  saw  a  lady  and  two  gentlemen  sitting 
near  a  blazing  fire.  Pleasing  as  the  aspect  of  all 
this  was,  that  which  really  astonished  me  was  a 
piece  of  furniture  my  wondering  eyes  could 


118 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


scarce  give  credit  to— a  real  carpet.  I  now  felt 
doubly  full  of  respect  for  everybody  and  every- 
thing, and,  without  venturing  to  intrude  upon  the 
carpet,  I  inquired  if  the  Judge  was  at  home. 
Upon  this  a  gentlemanly-looking  person,  about 
thirty-five  years  old,  rose  and  said  he  was  Judge 
Cross.  I  now  presented  my  letter,  which  being 
read,  the  most  unaffected  kind  reception  was 
given  to  me,  and  in  five  minutes  I  had  the  satis- 
faction of  knowing  my  good  horse  Missouri  was 
taken  care  of,  and  of  forming  one  of  the  family 
circle.  Mrs.  Cross  was  a  lady-like  and  agree- 
able woman,  full  of  the  most  amiable  attentions 
to  me.  The  supper  was  excellent,  and  the  even- 
ing was  concluded  by  a  very  instructive  conver- 
sation I  had  with  the  Judge  on  the  geography  of 
the  country,  its  mineral  resources,  and  the  move- 
ments which  for  some  time  I  had  not  been  able 
to  shut  my  eyes  upon,  in  relation  to  the  Mexican 
province  of  Texas. 

i  The  Judge  informed  me  that  his  jurisdiction 
extended  far  to  the  west,  near  200  miles,  and 
even  across  Red  River;  for  although  by  a  treaty 
between  Mexico  and  the  United  States  the  bound- 
ary betwixt  the  two  countries  was  settled  to  be 
by  a  north  line  to  Red  River,  from  where  the 
32nd  degree  of  N.  lat.  intersects  the  Sabine  Riv- 
er, yet,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  Mexicans,  a 
pretension  was  set  up  by  the  American  specula- 
tors that  the  river — which  from  time  immemorial 
tad  been  known  as  the  Sabine,  there  never  hav- 
ing been  any  other  stream  which  bore  that  name 
— was  not  the  Sabine,  but  that  in  fact  another 
stream  lying  farther  to  the  west,  and  which  was 
known  by  the  name  of  Neches,  was  the  true  Sa- 
bine. Unfortunately  for  this  pretension,  the 
32nd  degree  did  not  intersect  this  Neches ;  but 
as  the  claim  had  been  asserted,  this  was  deemed 
of  no  consequence  by  the  speculators,  so  the  ter- 
ritory involved  in  the  dispute  fell  under  the  juris- 
diction of  Judge  Cross  until  the  dispute  was  ad- 
justed ;  for  the  land  being  valuable,  American 
settlers  had  flocked  into  it,  and  there  he  was 
obliged  to  go  to  administer  justice,  traversing 
the  wilderness  alone,  swimming  the  rivers  upon 
his  horse,  and  picking  up  his  jurymen  here  and 
there,  as  he  went  along,  to  try  his  causes.  I  was 
glad  of  an  opportunity  of  asking  so  intelligent  a 
person,  and  who  was  so  well  acquainted  with 
everything  that  was  going  on  around  him,  how 
so  preposterous  a  claim  as  that  of  carrying  Amer- 
ican j  urisdiction  into  an  acknowledged  part  of  a 
neighbouring  republic  could  be  supported ;  but 
I  soon  found  that  he  was  too  prudent  to  say  any- 
thing to  a  stranger  about  the  merits  of  the  case, 
and  that  he  rather  seemed  to  consider  the  dispute 
decided  by  the  fact  of  American  citizens  having 
taken  possession  of  the  territory.  I  could  per- 
ceive that  this  gentleman,  who  appeared  in  ev- 
erything else  to  be  a  man  of  candour,  entertain- 
ed, in  common  with  his  countrymen,  the  opinion 
that  the  United  States  were  always  in  the  right, 
and  that  all  countries  that  differed  with  them 
•were  necessarily  in  the  wrong. 

When  the  hour  for  retiring  arrived,  I  was 
conducted  to  a  bed-room,  where  I  found  a  good 
fire,  nicely  plastered  walls,  and  not  a  space  in 
any  part  of  them  through  which  you  could  put 
your  head  to  see  what  it  was  the  hogs  were 
making  such  a  noise  about.  The  bed  looked 
nice  and  clean,  but  there  was  one  thing  I  did  not 
like  about  it,  and  that  was  a  pillow  too  much,  for 
there  were  two  on  the  bolster.  And  there  was 
something  else  in  the  room  1  liked  still  less,  in  the 
form  of  a  not  very  agreeable-looking  person,  ex- 


ceedingly out  of  health,  who  took  his  seat  near 
the  fire  after  the  Judge  had  retired,  and  whose 
attitude  created  a  strong  suspicion  and  misgiving 
in  me  that  he  had  a  deliberate  intention  of  laying 
his  long  thin  head  upon  one  of  the  pillows,  a 
privilege  he  was  at  least  as  much  entitled  as  my- 
self to  exercise,  being  the  Judge's  brother.  I  was 
contriving  various  plans  how  to  avoid  this  un- 
welcome association,  when  he  suddenly  relieved 
my  anxiety  by  bidding  me  good  night  and  leav- 
ing the  room. 

Of  all  the  distressing  situations  in  which  I 
could  be  placed,  the  keenest  of'all  would  be  to  be 
compelled  to  pass  the  night  on  the  same  bed  with 
another  man,  and  that  man  a  stranger,  a  tobacco 
eater,  and  perpetual  expectorator.  Much  as  I 
dreaded  my  worthy  friend  whilst  these  fears  were 
operating  upon  me,  I  felt  quite  amiably  disposed 
towards  him  as  soon  as  he  had  left  the  room, 
and  approached  the  bed  and  examined  it.  Cer- 
tainly never  did  man  feel  more  delighted  at 
drawing  the  highest  prize  in  the  lottery  than  I 
did  at  beholding  two  fine  white  linen  sheets,  it 
being  the  first  time  I  had  seen  such  a  phenome- 
non for  several  months.  Having  satisfied  my- 
self that  I  was  to  have  the  undisputed  possession 
of  this  luxury  and  performed  my  rapid  ablutions, 
I  hastened  to  the  perfect  enjoyment  of  all  this 
comfort  that  the  kind  Mrs.  Cross  had  provided 
for  me. 

As  soon  as  the  dawn  appeared — and  the  first 
ray  of  light  always  awakens  me  as  if  some  for- 
eign body  impinged  upon  my  eyes — I  rose  and 
dressed  myself,  and,  being  perfectly  refreshed 
with  a  sweet  night's  rest,  walked  out  to  look  at 
one  of  the  most  lovely  countries  I  had  ever  seen. 
Everything  had  become  changed  since  the  pre- 
ceding day,  the  sandstone  and  its  constant  con- 
comitants, the  pine-trees,  had  been  left  behind, 
and  I  had  now  got  to  a  fine,  gentle,  undulating 
country,  usually  called  rolling  here,  which  ap- 
peared to  consist  of  a  chain  of  prairies  running 
westward  and  parallel  with  R.ed  River  for  a 
great  distance,  until  the  whole  country  becomes 
one  vast  prairie,  devoid  of  trees,  except  those 
which  grow  immediately  upon  the  water-courses. 
Some  of  these  prairies  were  mere  bald  spots  of 
half  an  acre  and  more,  whilst  others  contained 
several  hundred  acres,  in  every  instance  sur- 
rounded with  a  belt  of  timber  and  plants  pecu- 
liar to  the  country. 

It  seemed  doubtful  from  the  first  superficial 
examination  whether  the  trees  were  gradually 
gaining  upon  the  prairies  or  those  upon  the  for- 
est. The  woods  and  the  copses  where  Judge 
Cross  had  erected  his  neat  cabin  were  very  love- 
ly, and  there  were  from  thirty  to  fifty  acres  of 
land  attached  to  the  house  without  being  dis- 
figured by  the  coarse  stumps  of  American  clear- 
ings. I  was  gratified  to  find  also  that  the  whole 
soil  consisted  of  the  same  dark  waxy  substance 
I  had  passed  the  preceding  day;  it  was  as  black 
as  charred  wood,  and  had  a  much  more  inky 
colour  than  the  rich  vegetable  mould  usually 
found  in  low  grounds,  although  it  was  mild  to 
the  taste,  and  did  not  appear  to  owe  its  colour  to 
sulphate  of  iron,  which  is  always  more  or  less 
astringent,  especially  in  the  black  clayey  earths 
of  New  Jersey  and  other  portions  of  the  Atlantic 
coast.  On  stooping  down  to  examine  the  soil  in 
a  small  corn-field,  I  perceived  it  abounded  with 
fine  specimens  of  helices,  and  whilst  I  was  aai  ti- 
ering these  I  saw  fragments  of  the  large  thick 
shells  of  Gryphasa  oonvexa;  in  the  course  of 
half  an  hour  I  had  eollected  besides  thc«e  ^mic 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


119 


perfect  shells  of  Exogyra  costata,  both  valves 
adhering,  and  which  had  never  been  disturbed. 
Returning  to  the  house,  I  procured  a  spade  and 
a  negro  to  assist  me,  and  digging  in  a  low  part 
where  a  stream  had  worn  a  channel  in  the  soil, 
I  found  reasons  to  believe  that  this  portion  of  the 
country,  which  had  the  quasi  prairie  character, 
was  bottomed  upon  immense  beds  of  rotten  lime- 
stone, probably  derived  from  the  testaceous  re- 
mains of  the  mollusca  I  have  named,  since  en- 
tire shells  in  a  soft  state  are  found  embedded  in 
the  limestone.  These  mollusca  are  the  charac- 
teristic fossils  of  the  subcretaceous*  deposits  of 
Monmouth  in  New  Jersey,  which  are  most  prob- 
ably contemporaneous  with  these  in  the  southern 
parts  of  Arkansas. 

At  breakfast,  having  turned  the  conversation 
upon  the  fossils  which  were  in  such  abundance 
here,  the  Judge  informed  me  that  his  corn-field 
whence  I  had  taken  the  shells  was  part  of  a  nat- 
ural prairie,  one  of  an  immense  number  that  ex- 
tended to  the  west;  and  that  he  believed,  from 
the  personal  observations  he  had  made,  that  the 
black  land  of  which  all  these  prairies  consisted, 
and  which  in  a  rainy  time  was  so  waxy  that  it 
was  difficult  to  walk  or  stir  in  it,  was  about  five 
miles  in  breadth,  and  extended  an  immense  dis- 
tance. This  exceedingly  increased  my  desire  to 
see  more  of  this  southern  country  in  company 
•with  the  Judge;  so  after  breakfast  he  very  obli- 
.gingly  mounted  his  horse,  and  we  made  an  agree- 
able excursion  in  the  neighbourhood,  calling  for 
a  short  time  at  the  little  insignificant  wooden  vil- 
lage of  Washington,  where  the  government  land- 
•sales  were  holding. 

I  was  not  desirous  of  remaining  long  at  this 
place.  General  Houston  was  here,  leading  a 
mysterious  sort  of  life,  shut  up  in  a  small  tavern, 
seeing  nobody  by  day  and  sitting  up  all  night. 
The  world  gave  him  credit  for  passing  these  his 
waking  hours  in  the  study  of  trente  et  quarante 
and  sept  a  lever ;  but  I  had  been  in  communica- 
tion with  too  many  persons  of  late,  and  had  seen 
too  much  passing  before  my  eyes,  to  be  ignora'nt 
that  this  little  place  was  the  rendezvous  where  a 
much  deeper  game  than  faro  or  rouge-et-noir 
was  playing.  There  were  many  persons  at  this 
time  in  the  village  from  the  States  lying  adjacent 
to  the  Mississippi,  under  the  pretence  of  pur- 
chasing government  lands,  but  whose  real  ob- 
ject was  to  encourage  the  settlers  in  Texas  to 
throw  off  their  allegiance  to  the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment. Many  of  these  individuals  were  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  me;  they  knew  I  was 
not  with  them,  and  would  naturally  conclude  I 
was  against  them.  Having  nothing  whatever  in 
common  with  their  plans,  and  no  inclination  to 
forward  or  oppose  them,  I  perceived  that  the 
longer  I  staid  the  more  they  would  find  reason 
to  suppose  I  was  a  spy  upon  their  actions,  and  as 
soon  as  the  Judge  had  spoken  to  a  few  of  his 
friends  we  came  away. 

On  our  way  back,  in  crossing  the  zone  of  black 
land,  we  invariably  found  grypheous  valves, 


*  The  term  "  subcretaceous"  i»  here  used  in  reference 
to  the  order  of  the  geological  strata  in  England,  chalk,  in 
place,  not  having  yet  been  seen  in  America.  But  as  the 
Gryphiea  convexa  and  Exogyra  costata  are  identically  the 
same  in  Arkansas  as  those  found  in  the  New  Jersey  depos- 
its, and  as  these  conform  as  to  succession  to  the  order  of 
doposit  of  the  English  beds,  and  contain  numerous  mollus- 
cous and  vertebrated  fossils  bearing  undoubted  generic  re- 
lations to  the  fossi  s  of  the  subcretaceous  beds  in  England, 
I  conceive  myself  justified  in  applying  this  term  as  an  equiv- 
alent, especially  as  I  am  of  opinion  that  there  is  not  a  stra- 
tum of  any  kind  in  North  America  which  does  not  more  or 
less  add  to  the  proofs  of  a  co-existent  order  of  succession. 


sometimes  profusely  scattered  around  with  their 
opercula  separated  from  them,  and  at  other  times 
with  their  valves  closed  and  a  small  quantity  of 
calcareous  matter  lying  upon  the  place  of  the 
muscular  attachment,  which  the  Judge  said  his 
negroes  called  "  petrified  oysters."  Sometimes, 
in  low  situations,  the  black  earth  gave  place  to 
a  deep  red  marie  of  great  fertility,  but  in  this 
marie  I  never  perceived  any  shells,  and  upon 
considering  the  situations  in  which  it  lay,  I  saw 
that  it  must  have  been  deposited  there  by  fresh 
water  that  had  passed  over  these  low  places  pos- 
terior to  the  abandonment  by  the  sea  of  the  sub- 
cretaceous beds.  The  shell's  invariably  seemed 
to  be  most  perfect  and  abundant  on  the  highest 
part  of  the  knolls  on  the  prairie  land,  probably 
from  the  land  draining  sooner  there  and  the 
shells  being  consequently  kept  drier.  The  fer- 
tility of  the  soils  in  this  part  of  the  country  ren- 
ders them  eminently  fitted  for  cotton,  which,  as 
I  had  many  opportunities  of  observing,  succeeds 
extremely  well :  the  staple  is  fine,  and  the  pro- 
duce in  good  seasons  reaches  from  1500  to  2000 
Ibs.  of  cotton  in  the  seed  to  the  acre.  Wheat 
has  not  yet  been  fairly  tried,  but  the  few  experi- 
mental essays  which  have  been  made  are  en- 
couraging. Indian  corn  yields  from  40  to  60 
bushels  to  the  acre.  I  was  told,  however,  that 
if  these  plants  were  cultivated  where  the  black 
earth  had  been  very  much  washed  from  the  sub- 
jacent limestone,  they  pined  in  dry  seasons,  the 
leaves  drying  up  and  the  stalks  gradually  dying. 
In  moderately  wet  seasons  this  is  not  tne  case, 
the  maize  then  does  very  well,  and  cotton  does 
not  require  so  much  moisture. 

Take  it  altogether,  this  is  a  very  lovely  and 
desirable  country;  picturesque  prairies,  charm- 
ing woods,  and  lively  streams  abound  every- 
where. Amongst  other  plants  I  remarked  the 
Crab- Apple  (Mains  coronaria)  and  the  Bois  d'Arc 
(Madura  aurantiaca) :  the  former  is  in  prodigious 
abundance,  and  attains  an  orchard-like  growth, 
some  of  the  trees  being  twenty  feet  high  and  ten. 
inches  in  diameter,  and  in  the  seasons  o'f  blos- 
soms are  said  to  scent  the  whole  country  around. 
The  Bois  d'Arc,  or  bow-wood,  with  its  orange- 
like  fruit  and  leaf,  also  flourishes  here,  but  is 
more  rare ;  its  wood  is  of  a  beautiful  yellow  col- 
our, something  resembling  the  sumac,  and  of  it 
the  Indians  make  their  best  bows,  from  which  it 
has  its  trivial  name. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Probable  origin  of  Prairies — Land  most  attractive  when  to 
be  obtained  without  paying  for — Mr.  Prior— Great  abuse 
of  the  Government  Land  Sales— An  Oasis  in  the  Wilder- 
ness— Contrast  between  the  educated  and  uneducated 
Classes— Two  patriotic  Members  of  the  Sovereign  People. 

IN  regard  to  the  origin  of  prairies,  an  opinion 
has  been  expressed  by  Mr.  Jefferson  and  others, 
that  all  prairies  have  been  produced  by  the  In- 
dian practice  of  firing  the  herbage  annually,  and 
thus  eventually  destroying  the  grown  timber  as 
well  as  inferior  plants.  This  cause  would  cer- 
tainly seem  to  be  a  sufficient  one  in  those  districts 
upon  which  no  other  could  apparently  operate ; 
but  the  geological  phenomena  of  this  part  of  the 
country  suggest,  perhaps,  a  more  probable  rea- 
son why  such  extensive  areas  of  country  should 
be  without  trees.  The  surface  presents  broken- 
down  marine  shelly  matter,  accumulated  into 
local  beds  and  extensive  hill  deposits,  after  the 
manner  in  which  we  know  the  oyster  and  some 


120 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


other  testaceous  families  accumulate  their  shells 
in  recent  times ;  and  the  general  irregularity  of 
the  surface  is  not  dissimilar  to  that  which  is 
presented  by  soundings  made  upon  many  marine 
coasts.  These  accumulations  are  more  or  less 
covered  with  a  vegeto-aniinaj  deposit,  probably 
derived  from  fuci,  algae,  molluscae,  and  other 
vegetable  and  animal  products  of  the  ocean,  that 
by  the  constantly  acting  power  of  the  elements 
has  been  partially  removed,  and  carried  by  rains 
towards  the  lowlands  and  streams.  Hence  this 
covering,  which  originally  had  been  equally  de- 
posited, is  now  diminished  in  some  places  and 
thickened  in  others. 

These  characteristics  of  the  prairie  country, 
as  far  as  this  particular  zone  of  prairies  is  con- 
cerned, are  common  to  a  vast  extent  of  country. 
Eastwards  from  hence,  the  zone  extends  from  33° 
40'  to  32°  30'  N.  lat.,  in  the  State  of  Alabama, 
where  wells  have  been  dug  500  feet  deep  through 
this  rotten  limestone  into  slate  with  quartzose 
veins;  and  throughout  this  extended  line, — all  of 
which  I  have  personally  examined, — the  charac- 
teristic shells  of  this  subcretaceous  formation 
have  been  found.  In  my  cabinet  I  possess  gry- 
phaea,  exogyra,  and  other  fossils  from  localities 
far  up  the  False  Washita, — one  of  the  most  im- 
portant forks  of  Red  River, — from  the  Kiamesha, 
200  miles  farther  east ;  from  the  state  of  Missis- 
sippi, from  the  Prairie  Bluffs  in  the  state  of  Ala- 
bama, and  from  the  state  of  New  Jersey ;  all  of 
them  identical  with  those  found  in  this  part  of 
Arkansas.  We  are  warranted,  therefore,  in  con- 
sidering this  zone  of  prairies  as  part  of  an  ancient 
floor  of  the  ocean,  and  may  reasonably  expect, 
when  further  investigations  shall  have  been 
made,  to  trace  the  littoral  bounds  of  the  North 
American  sea  during  the  snbcretaceous  and  ter- 
tiary periods,  parts  of  which  are  now  clearly 
marked  by  all  the  unequivocal  circumstances 
which  I  have  described. 

When  the  ocean  abandoned  these  areas,  they 
were  of  course  without  plants.  Now,  by  what- 
ever method  plants  begin  first  to  take  possession 
of  the  soil,  whether  by  spontaneous  growth  or  by 
the  agency  of  seeds  transported  thither,  they  are, 
where  the  vegetable  matter  is  thin  and  the  sea- 
son unfavourable,  liable  to  perish;  and  even 
where  they  are  not  thus  exposed  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  these  prairies  were  overrun,  as 
the  more  distant  western  prairies  still  are,  with 
countless  herds  of  roaming  buffaloes,  which,  by 
their  periodical  occupation  of  the  country,  would 
assist  in  exterminating  all  young  plants  and 
plants  of  a  vigorless  constitution.  These  may 
be  enumerated  amongst  the  efficient  causes  of  a 
prairie  or  meadow  state  of  extensive  tracts  of 
country,  a  view  of  the  subject  which  is  some- 
what strengthened  by  the  admitted  fact  of  plants 
in  modern  times  encroaching  on  the  prairies; 
for  it  is  observed,  that  they  now  begin  to  flourish 
where  vegetable  matter  has  accumulated,  being 
secured  from  the  devastating  teeth  and  hooffs  of 
the  buffalo,  all  of  which  have  left  this  part  of  the 
country,  for  where  man  settles  that  animal  never 
remains  long. 

The  singular  contrast  too  betwixt  so  many  prai- 
rie tracts  without  plants,  and  those  dense  and  in- 
terminable forests  which  cover  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  continent  of  North  America,  is  to  be  ac- 
counted for  by  geological  causes.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  the  tertiary  and  subcretaceons  areas 
referred  to,  the  other  mineral  formations  in  North 
America  appear  not  to  rise  higher  in  the  geolo- 
gical column  than  the  beds  of  the  carboniferous 


series,  the  entire  oolitic  series  being  deficient; 
and  when  we  consider  the  immense  period  of 
time  that  must  have  intervened  betwixt  the  de- 
posit of  the  coal  series  and  the  subcretaceous 
beds,  we  find  no  difficulty  in  supposing  that  when 
the  ocean  retired  from  these  last  and  they  became 
terra  firtna,  the  dry  land  which  had  preceded 
them  was  in  the  forest  state.  Unless,  therefore, 
we  call  to  our  aid  spontaneous  growth,  we  have 
only  to  choose  betwixt  prairies  destined  to  remain 
for  ever  without  plants,  or  prairies  slowly  filling 
up  with  plants  derived  from  the  seeds  of  those 
forests  which  clothed  the  more  ancient  forma- 
tions. The  borders  of  the  prairies  would  be 
planted  first,  and  thus  we  can  conceive  of  every 
new  generation  of  plants  giving  some  of  its  seeds 
— their  structure  being  eminently  fitted  for  so 
great  a  purpose — to  the  winds  and  the  waters, 
and  gradually  extending  the  forests ;  as  the  pres- 
ent members  of  the  human  family  who  now  pos- 
sess the  land  send  forth  their  generations  to  ad- 
vance upon  and  settle  the  country  for  the  uses 
of  posterity. 

This  seems  a  more  natural  and  just  method 
of  accounting  for  the  immense  prairies  of  the 
west,  and  the  pampas  of  the  southern  portion  of 
the  American  continent,  than  conjectural  opin- 
ions founded  on  a  convenient  method  adopted  by 
the  Indians  to  secure  their  game ;  a  method  which, 
they  have  successfully  practised  at  all  times,  to 
burn  the  cane  and  high  grass  in  the  upland 
forests,  and  which  has  somewhat  thinned  but 
has  not  destroyed  them,  as  we  see  from  the  state 
of  the  more  open  woods  in  Virginia,  Tennessee, 
Kentucky,  Indiana,  Missouri,  and  Arkansas  ; 
where,  now  that  the  Indians  have  abandoned  the 
country,  the  undergrowth  is  rapidly  occupying 
the  ground  again.  It  therefore  appears  to  me 
that-  those  prairies,  instead  of  having  been  de- 
nuded by  fire,  have  never,  since  the  ocean  aban- 
doned them,  been  covered  by  any  vegetables  of 
greater  importance  than  the  gramina. 

Fertile  and  beautiful  as  the  country  is  where 
Judge  Cross  resides,  it  is  singular,  that  although 
it  is  one  of  the  most  salubrious  parts  of  Arkan- 
sas, and  enjoys  such  a  temperate  climate,  yet 
American  citizens  from  great  distances  are  con- 
stantly traversing  it,  amidst  all  sorts  of  priva- 
tions and  difficulties,  to  seek  a  precarious  exist- 
ence in  the  unknown  lands  of  Texas.  Hundreds 
of  thousands  of  acres  of  the  very  first  quality, 
and  which  they  could  obtain  at  the  insignificant 
price  established  by  law  of  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
an  acre,  are  passed  by  as  if  they  did  not  deserve 
their  attention.  Put  in  motion  by  the  insidious 
arts  of  the  unprincipled  adventurers  who  have 
for  a  long  period  contemplated  this  great  robbery 
of  the  Mexican  government,  and  their  cupidity 
awakened  by  the  vision  of  magnificent  farms  fc 
be  obtained  far  nothing,  they  hasten  on  to  a  country 
possessing  fewer  advantages,  little  suspecting- 
that  they  are  but  tools  employed  by  their  tempt- 
ers to  defend  the  plunder  these  have  in  contem- 
plation. I  never  meet  with  waggons  filled  with 
these  Texas  emigrants,  without  looking  upon  the 
men  as  victims  and  the  women  and  children  as 
widows  and  orphans. 

Having  taken  leave  of  the  respectable  family 
by  whom  I  had  been  so  agreeably  entertained,  I 
pursued  my  road  to  Red  River,  and  after  pro- 
ceeding three  miles  came  upon  a  barren  sand 
which  lasted  all  the  way  to  the  village  of  Wash- 
ington, a  miserable  affair,  built  on  a  dry  scorch- 
ing sand-hill,  and  which  has  no  resource  or  at- 
traction whatever.  On  my  previous  visit  here 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


121 


I  had  been  made  acquainted  with  a  Mr.  Prior,  a 
Virginian,  who  had  moved  into  the  neighbourhood 
of  Red  River  about  three  years  before,  and  had 
established  a  cotton  plantation  in  Texas ;  but  as 
it  was  very  unhealthy  in  the  autumn  on  account 
of  malaria,  he  had  built  a  cabin  on  the  uplands 
in  Arkansas,  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  his  family. 
I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Mr.  Prior  again 
whilst  my  horse  was  feeding,  and  finding  that  I 
was  going  in  the  direction  of  his  cabin,  he  said 
that,  as  he  was  returning  home,  he  should  be 
happy  to  accompany  me,  and  give  me  lodgings 
for  the  night.  Gladly  accepting  this  offer,  we 
left  the  village  together,  and  I  soon  discovered 
that  my  companion  was  a  gentlemanly  and  in- 
telligent person,  and  wide  awake  to  everything 
that  was  passing  around  him.  During  our  ride, 
that  absorbing  topic  in  this  part  of  the  world,  the 
proceedings  of  the  land  speculators,  was  of  course 
adverted  to. 

The  passion  for  speculation  in  almost  every 
part  of  this  country  is  singularly  absorbing,  but 
is  intelligible  enough.  As  there  is  no  rank  in 
the  United  States  except  official  rank,  all  those 
who  are  excluded  from  it  are  theoretically  upon 
an  equality;  but  this  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  practical  equality,  which  seems  to  be  be- 
yond the  powers  of  demonstration.  The  consti- 
tution of  a  country  may  require  all  men  to  be 
equally  stupid,  may  forbid  any  man  to  be  of  a 
more  lofty  nature  than  the  rest,  and  may  declare 
that  the  top  and  the  bottom  are  one  and  the  same 
thing:  all  these  dogmas  may  be  proclaimed  on 
the  4th  of  July  from  Da"n  to  Beersheba,  but  will 
not  deter  men  an  instant  from  endeavouring  to 
surpass  each  other  in  the  possession  of  worldly 
advantages  of  every  kind.  Whilst  these  theories 
are  brought  forward  to  flatter  the  people,  sub- 
stantial inequality  is  what  every  man  in  Amer- 
ica is  engaged  in  establishing,  and  this  by  the 
agency  of  the  almighty  dollar,  a  superabundance 
of  which  being  a  substitute  for  other  virtues, 
stands  in  the  place  of  all  distinction.  Wealth, 
therefore,  since  it  implies  virtue  of  every  imagin- 
able kind,  must  be  had  at  any  cost ;  and  good 
faith  and  fair  dealing,  both  public  and  private, 
are  not  to  be  permitted  to  stand  too  inconveni- 
ently in  the  way  of  its  acquisition.  In  America, 
where  so  many  have  no  objection  to  obtain  it  at 
this  price,  there  certainly  can  be  no  avenue  to 
its  possession  so  tempting  as  speculating  in  the 
public  laixds;  for  without  denying  that  the 
scheme  under  which  they  are  sold  in  detail  to 
the  public  is  simple,  and  ostensibly  fair  for  bond 
fide  purchasers,  yet  nothing  can  be  more  admi- 
rably contrived  to  facilitate  the  proceedings  of 
unprincipled  speculators. 

The  country  which  is  to  be  sold  is  surveyed 
into  sections,  land-offices  are  established,  and  a 
period  is  appointed  by  the  highest  authority  in 
the  country  when  a  public  sale  is  to  be  held,  and 
the  sections  or  their  sub-divisions*  to  be  struck 
off  to  the  highest  bidder :  any  of  the  sections, 
however,  which  remain  unsold  after  the  sale  for 
want  of  bidders,  being  free  to  be  entered  at  the 
minimum  price  established  bylaw,  of  one  dollar 
and  a  quarter.  Nothing  can  appear  more  fair, 
more  moderate,  and  more  encouraging  to  the  in- 
creasing population  of  the  country  than  the 
scheme  of  this  law,  which  was  enacted  by  the 
Congress,  with  the  sanction  of  many  honourable 
and  unsuspecting  individuals.  But  what  is  often 
the  practice  under  it  1  The  future  settler  leaves 


A  section  is  one  square  mile,  or  640  acres. 


hisfamilv,  proceeds  perhaps  one  thousand  miles, 
gets  a  description  of  the  sections  at  the  land- 
office  of  the  district,  finds  a  section  that  suits- 
him,  builds  a  cabin  upon  it,  clears  a  field,  plants 
corn  for  the  coming  winter,  and  returns  to  con- 
duct his  family  to  his  future  home ;  there  to  await 
— with  the  hard  dollars  prescribed  by  law  for 
payment  of  the  land— the  time  to  be  appointed 
for  the  public  sale,  when  he  hopes  to  obtain  a 
Government  title  for  his  land,  at  a  price  not  ex- 
ceeding one  dollar  and  a  quarter  per  acre.  In. 
the  mean  time  active  speculators — who  find  it 
convenient  to  be  political  partisans — combine 
with  larger  views,  and  form  plans  which  often 
materially  interfere  with  the  industrious  and  un- 
suspecting settler. 

First  contriving  by  a  little  political  manage- 
ment to  place  one  of  their  number  as  principal 
person  in  the  land-office  of  the  district  to  be  oper- 
ated in,  they  next  make  themselves  well  acquaint- 
ed with  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  other  natural 
ad-vantages  appertaining  to  each  of  the  most 
valuable  sections  of  land.  If  one  of  them  lies 
near  a  public  road,  if  it  has  a  navigable  stream 
near  it,  if  it  is  the  probable  site  of  a  future  court- 
house, and  is  of  the  first  class  for  fertility,  they 
send  an  agent  to  the  settler  who  is  upon  it,  to  tell 
him  that  they  mean  to  bid  against  him  at  the  sale- 
and  to  get  a  government  title  to  the  land  at  any 
price  whatever.  The  dismayed  settler  consults 
his  family,  he  knows  what  they  are  capable  of 
doing,  and  that  if  even  the  section  were  knocked 
down  to  him  at  a  speculating  price,  he  could  not 
obtain  the  money  to  pay  for  it.  He  has  only  to 
choose  then  between  abandoning  the  land  where 
he  has  expended  so  much  labour,  and  to  which 
he  and  his  family  have  become  attached,  or  to- 
make  a  ruinous  compromise.  This  is  sometimes 
effected  by  his  consenting  to  let  the  speculators 
purchase  the  land  at  the  sale,  and  to  take  a  title 
from  them  instead  of  the  government.  In  many 
cases  the  poor  settlers  have  agreed  to  pay  tea 
dollars  an  acre  to  these  rapacious  and  unfeeling 
wretches,  delivering  to  them  the  ready  money 
they  had  prepared  to  pay  to  the  government,  and 
executing  a  mortgage  to  them  for  the  remainder. 
Thus  is  the  once  cheerful  settler  weighed  down 
to  the  earth  with  a  heavy  debt  that  presses  upon, 
him  for  the  remainder  of  his  life,  and  converted 
into  the  slave  of  a  set  of  unprincipled  harpies 
who  make  enormous  profits  by  their  nefarious 
transactions,  without  advancing  any  capital 
whatever. 

But  this  is  not  the  most  atrocious  thing  that 
takes  place.  If  the  settler  refuses  to  compro- 
mise, the  parties  attend  the  sale ;  the  speculators 
constantly  overbid  the  settler,  even  if  they  have 
to  bid  four  times  more  than  the  value  of  the  land, 
and  of  course  it  is  struck  down  to  them,  and  the 
settler  has  lost  his  home.  Now  comes  the  oper- 
ation of  a  regulation  of  these  land-offices,  which 
is  of  this  nature :  if  the  price  at  which  a  section, 
or  a  half  or  a  quarter  section  of  land  has  been, 
knocked  down  to  any  one,  is  not  all  paid  within. 
a  certain  number  of  hours,  the  fact  is  to  be  sta- 
ted at  the  opening  of  the  sale  the  next  morning, 
and  the  sale  declared  void.  The  next  morning, 
the  clerk  of  the  land-office  commences  by  read- 
ng  the  numbers  of  the  sections  the  price  for 
which  has  not  been  paid,  and  declares  the  sales 
of  each  of  them  void.  The  settler,  overjoyed  to 
find  his  own  section  is  amongst  the  number, 
goes  to  the  clerk  as  soon  as  he  is  told  the  register 
is  open,  and  directs  his  name  to  be  put  down  as 
the  purchaser  at  the  minimum  price  of  one  dol- 


122 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


3ar  and  a  quarter  an  acre.  The  clerk  opens  the 
register  and  with  affected  surprise  informs  the 
applicant  that  another  person  has  just  before  en- 
tered his  name  for  that  section.  The  deludec 
and  unfortunate  man  now  sees  that  there  is  n 
remedy  ;  that  the  clerk  is  a  confederate  of  these 
speculators,  and  that  the  whole  has  been  arran 
ged  in  concert  with  them  to  defraud  him  am 
.  give  them — after  the  pretended  competition  ai 
the  public  sale — a  government  title  at  the  mini 
mum  price.  These  vile  transactions  have  been 
repeated  too  often,  and  in  some  instances  the 
names  of  individuals  have  been  coupled  with 
them  that  ought  to  have  been  free  from  every 
taint  of  suspicion :  so  true  it  is  that  where  money 
is  the  principal  avenue  to  distinction  in  a  coun- 
try, every  honest  principle  is  too  often  tramplec 
upon  to  obtain  it. 

Mr.  Prior  and  myself  continued  on  this  sandy 
pine  land  for  some  miles,  and  then  entered  upon 
a  dead  level  of  fine  black  land,  underlaid  by  rot- 
ten testaceous  matter.  It  continued  for  a  great 
distance  entirely  on  the  same  level,  so  that  the 
water  laid  upon  it  as  if  it  were  a  moss,  and  made 
it  very  unpleasant  travelling,  being  black  and  ex 
ceedingly  muddy  and  plastic :  this  is  so  much 
the  case,  that  in  consequence  of  the  pigs  coming 
home  with  loads  of  black  matter  behind  them,  jl 
is  now  the  custom  to  cut  off  their  tails.  The 
land  at  length  began  to  rise,  and  we  got  upon  a 
siliceo-calcareous  ridge  that  was  a  sort  of  water- 
shed, sending  off  streams  to  the  north  and  south 
Here,  from  the  great  profusion  of  those  plants 
<which  only  grow  on  the  most  fertile  soils,  and 
which  are  an  indication  of  good  cotton  land,  I 
.perceived  that  we  were  entering  into  a  produc- 
tive district.  Notwithstanding  the  abundance 
of  trees,  we,  however,  as  usual,  saw  very  few 
birds  except  the  crow,  a  cosmopolite  that  is 
found  everywhere,  even  in  the  deepest  solitudes 
of  Arkansas;  but  his  presence  always  gives  me 
pleasure,  for  the  sound  of  his  voice  diminishes 
time  and  distance,  strikes  upon  the  chords  of 
«arly  youth,  and  carries  me  back  to  those  care- 
less days  when  the  crow  was  amongst  the  most 
familiar  of  my  acquaintances. 

As  we  advanced,  lofly  pines  mixed  with  oaks 
covered  the  ridge,  which  presented  an  excellent 
surface  for  agricultural  purposes.  Taking  a 
short  cut,  Mr.  Prior  led  the  way,  and  we  thread- 
ed the  mazes  of  the  pines  that  now  assumed  an 
astonishing  height  and  diameter,  such  as  1  had 
never  before  seen  out  of  Canada.  We  seemed 
to  be  buried  in  an  interminable  forest;  night  had 
fallen,  and  I  began  to  think  we  must  necessarily 
have  a  still  fatiguing  ride  to  perform  ere  we  got 
out  of  the  woods  to  this  cabin  we  were  in  search 
of;  when  turning  to  the  left  we  suddenly  came 
upon  it,  and  I  confess  I  have  seldom  been  more 
pleasingly  surprised.  In  the  midst  of  a  forest  of 
pine  trees,  few  of  them  less  than  three  feet  in  di- 
ameter, a  clearing  of  a  few  acres  had  been  effect- 
ed, an  admirable  fence  put  round  it,  and  the 
whole  divided  into  regular  compartments.  In 
one  of  these,  consisting  perhaps  of  a  couple  of 
acres,  were  several  detached  buildings  made  of 
hewn  logs,  but  finished  in  a  very  neat  manner, 
except  those  which  had  been  hastily  thrown  up 
for  the  use  of  the  negroes.  On  entering  this  pre- 
cinct, at  a  distance  of  perhaps  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  buildings,  I  hardly  knew  how  to  repress 
my  admiration.  I  had  been  forming  to  myself 
an  idea  of  a  humble  cabin  hastily  got  together  in 
the  woods,  when  a  villa  of.  very  neat  proportions 
appeared  before  me,  with  a  quadrangle  bordered 


with  plants  here  and  there,  regularly  laid  out  into 
broad  walks ;  whilst  the  squares  between  the 
walks,  so  far  from  having  been  ploughed  or  dug 
up,  were  still  filled  with  the  huge  stumps  of  the 
pines  that  had  grown  there  only  eighteen  months 
before,  when  Mr.  Prior  first  commenced  to  cut 
the  pine  trees  down.  Another  compartment  had 
been  turned  into  an  excellent  vegetable  garden, 
where  all  sorts  of  good  things  were  growing,  and 
here  the  stumps  had  been  eradicated.  This  was 
truly  an  oasis  in  the  desert,  and  I  saw  at  once 
that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Prior  had  been  accustomed 
to  the  refined  comforts  of  life,  and  had  the  sense 
to  create  them  wherever  they  went.  That  no- 
thing might  be  wanting  to  complete  the  evidence 
my  eyes  were  collecting  of  this,  just  as  we  reach- 
ed the  house  1  distinctly  heard  the  tones  of  a  pi- 
ano— a  piano  in  the  wilderness,  within  ten  miles 
of  a  Mexican  province! 

When  so  many  pleasing  things  come  unex- 
pectedly upon  us,  the  imagination  easily  enters 
upon  the  task  of  investing  them  with  attractions 
yet  unseen ;  and  as  I  had  found  order,  neatness, 
and  music,  in  a  forest,  where  a  short  time  before 
I  had,  at  the  best,  anticipated  a  rude  cabin  to 
shelter  me  during  the  night,  I  came  at  once  to 
the  comfortable,conclusion  that  such  things  as  a 
good  supper  and  a  bed  might  also  be  found  here, 
nor  was  I  disappointed.  Mrs.  Prior  received 
me  very  politely,  and  there  was  no  want  of  the 
most  hospitable  attentions  during  my  stay.  Mr. 
Prior  had  resided  a  short  time  on  his  cotton 
plantation,  south  of  Red  River,  but  finding  it  in- 
salubrious, and  having  an  only  daughter,"a  nice 
little  girl  of  ten  years  old,  he  sought  a  healthy 
situation  in  the  hills  at  a  convenient  distance, 
and  selecting  a  spot  where  there  was  an  ample 
spring  of  fine  pellucid  water,  he  commenced  his 
improvements,  carrying  them  on  with  great  spirit 
and  taste.  Without  the  fence  which  enclosed 
his  buildings,  were  huge  piles  of  logs  from  the 
pine  trees  which  had  been  cut  down,  and  which 
had  been  rolled  into  large  heaps  to  dry  before 
they  could  be  burnt  up.  It  would  have  broken 
the  heart  of  a  regular  timber-merchant  to  see 
hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  the  finest  logs — with- 
out a  single  knot  in  them — deliberately  put  on 
one  side  to  be  converted  into  smoke  and  ashes; 
a  proceeding  that  justifies  the  application  of  the 
old  saw,  that  "What  is  one  man's  food  is  an- 
other man's  poison,"  for  there  being  no  saw  mills 
at  present  in  the  country  IQ  work  up  these  beau- 
tiful trees,  they  are  glad  to  resort  to  the  least  in- 
commodious way  of  getting  rid  of  them. 

The  example  of  this  gentleman,  in  providing 
for  the  health  and  comfort  of  his  family,  is  about 
:o  be  followed,  I  understand,  by  other  planters: 
they  talk  already  of  building  a  church,  and  frora 
what  I  hear,  they  have  a  cheerful  prospect  be- 
fore them  of  establishing  a  social  and  moral  col- 
ony of  educated  people  in  this  part  of  Arkansas. 

How  great  a  contrast  is  shown  in  the  results 
produced  by  settlers  of  the  educated  and  unedu- 
cated classes!  The  individuals  of  this  last,  not- 
withstanding the  "sovereign"  privileges  with 
which  they  are  dignified,  seem,  wherever  I  have 
lad  an  opportunity  of  observing  them,  to  have 
)ut  one  object  in  view,  which  is  the  immediate 
gratification  of  animal  wants.  Order,  cleanli- 
icss,  propriety,  seem  never  to  be  thought  of ; 
hey  build  a  rude  cabin,  they  remain  in  it  till  it 
rots,  they  patch  it  up  as  long  as  they  can,  and 
only  when  it  has  begun  to  tumble  down,  build 
another  as  rude  as  the  first.  They  live  twenty 
or  thirtv  vears  in  the  same  place  without  dis- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


123 


covering  that  they  have  a  single  moral  want.  |  the  huge  branches  of  which  are  as  white  as  snow, 
Religion  is  never  spoken  of,  and  the  Sabbath  other  trees  of  the  sycamore  kind,  deciduous  cy- 
day  to  them  is  nothing  but  a  day  when  it  is  a  press,  and  immense  canes  20  to  30  feet  high, 
custom  for  the  husband  to  shave  himself,  and  j  I  found  my  companion,  Mr.  Williams,  an  in- 
the  wife  to  go  out  a  visiting.  If  an  individual  teresting  person.  He  had  passed  a  very  adven- 
comes  amongst  them  with  higher  views,  they  do  j  turous  life,  was  a  short  thin  man,  looking  much 
not  aspire  to  his  standard  but  seek  to  drag  him  j  older  than  he  was,  from  the  effects  of  exposure 
down  to  their  level,  as  being  exactly  the  situa-  |  and  various  hardships,  and  as  he  told  me,  from 
lion  they  would  choose  if  they  were  in  his  place,  |  the  great  quantity  of  calomel  he  had  been  obliged 


for  nothing  seems  to  appear  more  natural  to  de 
mocracy  than  dirt.  An  anecdote  was  once  re- 
lated to  me  which  illustrates  this  well. 

One  of  the  sovereign  people,  who  was  return- 
ing home  from  a  political  meeting  in  New  York, 
where  he  had  been  amazingly  sublimated  with 
magnificent  speeches  about  the  exceeding  virtu- 
ous infallibility  of  the  class  he  belonged  to,  and 
Aviih  just  as  much  whiskey  as  had  materially 
deranged  his  centre  of  gravity,  went  along,  with 
uncertain  steps,  and  thinking  aloud,  when  sud- 
denly the  street  seemed  to  be  so  unaccountably 
steep  as  to  render  it  necessary  to  lift  his  legs  as 
much  as  if  he  was  getting  up  stairs.  A  little 
giddiness  next  seized  him  as  if  he  had  been  on 
the  deck  of  a  vessel  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  and 
opening  his  eyes  wide,  he  saw  a  large  brick 
house  coming/?//;  split  at  him  round  the  corner; 
out  of  the  way  of  this  he  had  but  just  happily 
got,  when  the  ground  flew  up,  struck  him  in  the 
forehead,  an-i  knocked  him  into  the  gutter.  Find- 
ing it  a  natural  and  easy  position,  he  remained 
contentedly  there  until  the  inclination  to  get  to  a 
drier  place  took  him,  when  perceiving  the  ap- 
proach of  another  member  of  the  republican  roy- 
al family,  pretty  much  in  the  same  happy  state 
as  he  had  been  in,  he  said,  "Won't— you — be — 


so— 'bliging- 
the  gutter T' 


as— lend— me  a— hand— out— of— 
"  That's — jist — owpossible,"  cour 


teously  replied  the  new  comer,  "but — if  you — 
lifce — I'll  come — and — lie — down — by  you." 

The  degraded  state  of  things  which  prevails 
amongst  the  lower  classes  cannot  improve  of  it- 
self, but  must  grow  worse  from  generation  to 
generation,  without  the  aid  of  living  moral  ex- 
amples; the  efforts,  therefore,  which  Mr.  Prior 
and  his  friends  are  making  to  establish  a  ration- 
al mode  of  existence  in  this  part  of  the  country, 
deserve  every  encouragement  and  commenda- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Mr.  Williams  ;  his  adventures — Blunder  of  the  Mexican 
Government— Reach  Red  River— Cross  into  the  Mexican 
Province  of  Texas— Lost  Prairie,  a  beautiful  tract  of  land 
—Surprising  Crop  of  Cotton  in  a  field  of  300  acres— The 
Abolition  of  Slavery  a  hopeless  case— The  future— Wild 
Musoadel  Grape. 

AFTER  breakfast,  having  made  my  acknowl- 
edgments for  so  much  kindness,  I  took  leave,  and 
accompained  by  a  Mr.  Williams,  who  was  a  vis- 
itor there,  pursued  my  way  to  Red  River,  distant 
only  ten  miles,  following  the  southern  slope  of 
the  pine  hills,  which  show  a  great  many  beds  of 
ferruginous  sandstone.  At  the  foot  of  these  hills 
the  rich  and  broad  bottom  land  of  Red  River 
commences,  which  is  considered  to  be  of  the 
very  first  class  of  cotton  lands  in  this  part  of 
North  America.  A  portion  of  it  had  just  been 
sold  at  the  public  land-sale  at  Washington,  and 
some  of  the  sections  had  brought  as  high  a  price 
as  ten,  and  even  thirteen  dollars  an  acre.  The 
bottom  is  about  a  mile  in  width  on  the  north  side 
of  the  river,  and  is  densely  covered  with  lowland 
timber,  such  as  cotton  wood,(Populus  monilifera), 


to  take  when  attacked  by  fever  and  ague.  He 
was  a  native  of  Connecticut,  and  had  entered 
into  the  Mexican  service  previous  to  the  eleva- 
tion of  Iturbide.  Attaching  himself  to  an  Ameri- 
can named  Long,  a  partisan  in  that  service,  with 
the  rank  of  Colonel  or  General,  and  who  was  as- 
sassinated in  the 


Republicanism — he  had  been  imprisoned  with 
other  Americans,  obnoxious  to  Iturbide,  and  con- 
demned to  be  shot.  His  life,  however,  was  spa- 
red, and  having  survived  many  turbulent  adven- 
tures, he  had  attached  himself  to  another  of  his 
countrymen,  a  Colonel  Milam,  who,  for  services 
to  the  Mexican  Government,  had  received  a 
grant  of  eleven  leagues  of  land  on  Red  River, 
and  on  this  grant  Mr.  Williams  had  resided 
many  years  alone,  in  a  small  cabin,  providing 
everything  for  himself,  and  very  seldom  even 
seeing  his  friend  Colonel  Milam,  whose  public 
duties  and  private  affairs  seldom  permitted  him 
to  visit  his  grant  on  Red  River.  It  is  probable, 
too,  that  the  Mexican  Government  kept  a  jealous 
eye  upon  his  movements,  this  grant  being  com- 
prehended in  the  territorial  dispute  which  has 
been  before  mentioned,  for  it  is  well  known  to 
them  that  persons  occupying  land  on  the  frontier 
consider  themselves  in  the  United  States  or  in 
Texas,  just  as  it  suits  their  interests.  They  are 
Mexicans  until  they  get  a  title  from  the  Mexican 
Government,  but  as  the  Americans  are  the  only 
settlers  who  give  an  intrinsic  value  to  the  land 
by  their  labour,  it  becomes  the  interest  of  every 
proprietor  to  encourage  the  annexation  of  the 
country  to  the  United  States,  a  measure,  any  se- 
rious attempt  to  consummate  which,  will  be  a  se- 
vere trial  to  the  Federal  Union.  Nor  can"  the 
Mexicans  be  blind  to  the  movement  that  is  now 
going  on  in  relation  to  the  province  of  Texas,  or 
fail  to  have  their  doubts  about  the  fidelity  of  in- 
dividuals situated  as  Colonel  Milam  is.  Indeed 
all  the  persons  who  have  possessions  on  the  dis- 
puted line,  being  native-born  citizens  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  may  be  considered  as  pioneers  of  the 
advancing  Anglo-American  population,  and  to 
be  only  waiting  for  favourable  opportunities  to 
indulge  in  their  irresistible  propensity  to  spread 
themselves  over  conterminous  territories,  with 
or  without  any  title  to  them. 

In  this  quarter  no  obstacle  whatever  appears 
to  present  itself  to  their  advance.  The  indiscreet 
legislation  of  Mexico,  by  which  American  citi- 
zens have  been  pennitted  to  settle  in  Texas,  upon 
condition  of  conforming  to  its  laws,  of  adopting 
the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  abolishing 
slavery,  has  already  put  the  country  into  their 
possession;  the  conditions  will  none  of  them  be 
observed,  and  when  it  is  too  late,  Mexico  will 
find  that  it  would  have  been  easier  to  have  kept 
them  out,  than  it  will  be  to  turn  them  out.  Bu. 
as  Mexico  is  essentially  a  revolutionary  govern- 
ment, and  as  no  party  at  the  capital  will  probably 
for  a  long  time  be  strong  enough  to  do  more  than 
attend  to  its  own  interests,  it  is  almost  self-evi- 
dent that  if  ever  she  has  the  inclination,  she  will 
never  have  the  power  to  govern— at  a  distance 


124 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


of  1800  miles — a  race  of  active  and  intrepid  men, 
who  are  hostile  to  her  laws,  religion,  and  manners. 
It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  Mexico,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  settlement  of  Texas,  has  made  an  ir- 
retrievable false  step. 

On  reaching  the  banks  of  Red  River,  although 
I  was  very  much  delighted  at  having  successfully 
penetrated  to  this  extreme  frontier  of  the  broad 
territory  of  the  United  States,  yet  I  could  not  but 
perceive  that  nothing  could  be  less  beautiful  or 
picturesque  than  the  river  and  its  shores.  The 
stream  was  here  about  200  yards  wide,  sluggish, 
muddy,  and  chocolate  coloured  ;  deriving  its  col- 
our from  the  deep  red  earth  it  has  in  ancient 
times  deposited,  and  through  which  it  now  flows  ; 
and  exhibiting  on  its  banks  an  impenetrable  wil- 
derness of  briars,  plants  of  various  kinds,  and 
lofty  canes  of  from  20  to  30  feet  high.  The  next 
thing  was  to  cross  the  river  at  what  is  called 
Dooley's  Ferry,  to  the  Texas  side,  where,  on  ac- 
count of  the  present  low  stage  of  the  water,  there 
was  an  extensive  beach  of  200  yards  or  more. 
As  soon  as  the  ferryboat  touched  the  Mexican 
shore,  I  hastened  to  lead  my  horse  over  the  beach 
as  rapidly  as  I  could,  Tor  the  ferryman  told  me 
that  it  was  very  dangerous,  would  scarcely  bear 
the  weight  of  a  horse,  and  might  suck  him  in,  if 
I  loitered.  I  soon  saw  this  was  good  advice,  for 
the  bog  shook  in  a  treacherous  manner,  and  Mis- 
souri, who  did  not  appear  to  like  this  unusual 
surface,  aiding  with  great  agility,  we  soon  reach- 
ed the  hard  land,  and  found  ourselves  in  what 
the  ferryman  called  "  Spain." 

We  were  now  upon  an  exceedingly  fertile  bot- 
tom between  three  and  four  miles  wide,  densely 
full  of  plants  and  trees,  amongst  which  I  recog- 
nised for  the  first  time  the  palmetto,  with  its 
graceful  fanlike  shape.  Having  got  through  it, 
we  came  upon  drier  and  blacker  land,  and  then 
to  a  locality  called  Lost  Prairie,  which  is  a  tract 
of  about  2000  acres  of  incredible  beauty  and  fer- 
tility, bearing  extraordinary  crops  of  cotton,  and 
gracefully  surrounded  by  picturesque  woods.  I 
had  never  'seen  the  cotton  plant  growing  in 
perfection  before,  for  in  the  cotton  districts  I  had 
already  passed  through,  the  plant  was  a  low 
dwarfed  bush  not  exceeding  two  feet  high :  but 
here  the  whole  country  was  filled  with  stately  and 
umbrageous  bushes  five  feet  high,  covered  with 
innumerable  pods  resembling  large  white  roses. 
Having  found  out  where  the  plantation  of  a  Dr. 
Jones  was,  to  whom  I  had  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion, I  rode  there,  and  learned  that  he  was  from 
home,  but  his  family  offering  to  receive  me,  1 
determined  to  remain  at  their  house  for  the  night, 
that  I  might  have  an  opportunity  of  looking  at 
the  immediate  neighbourhood.  It  was  a  charm- 
ing sunny  day,  the  thermometer  (Dec.  11)  stood 
at  74°  out  of  doors,  and  not  a  cloud  in  the 

It  had  occurred  to  me,  before  I  crossed  Red 
River,  that  it  would  be  prudent  not  to  prolong 
my  stay  in  Texas  at  this  time.  All  the  persons 
whom  I  had  any  intercourse  with,  appeared  to 
be  of  one  opinion  as  to  the  expediency  and  pro- 
priety of  occupying  and  detaching  this  province 
from  the  Mexican  government,  and  it  was  easy 
to  see  that  they  thought  the  moment  for  action 
was  drawing  nigh.  Upon  several  occasions, 
when  this  important  subject  was  earnestly  dis- 
cussed in  my  presence,  I  had  remained  silent ; 
and  as  this  was  unusual  in  a  quarter  where  all 
men  had  some  plan  or  other  to  offer  to  acceler- 
ate their  design,  I  was  by  many  regarded  as  a 
spy  upon  them.  If  I  had  waited  here  until  my 


son  joined  me,  and  then  advanced  larthcr  into 
the  country,  some  outbreak  might  take  place, 
and  we  might  become  involved  in  its  consequen- 
ces, or  have  found  it  difficult  to  return.  I  deter- 
mined, therefore,  as  the  most  prudent  course,  to 
defer  my  examination  of  the  interior  of  the  prov- 
ince until  I  could  do  it  with  the  permission  of 
the  Mexican  authorities,  or  until  the  country 
had  become  quiet  enough  to  admit  of  my  moving 
about  without  observation.  In  the  mean  time 
there  was  something  to  see  here,  and  I  set  about 
making  the  best  use  I  could  of  the  time  I  intend- 
ed to  stay. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  extraordina- 
ry fertility  of  the  soil  of  Lost  Prairie.  I  had  an. 
opportunity  of  examining  the  nature  of  the  de- 
posit in  a  well  just  dug  to  the  depth  of  thirty  feet 
from  the  surface  ;  the  first  three  feet  went  through 
a  rich  black  vegetable  mould,  and  the  remain- 
ing twenty-seven  through  a  reddish-coloured 
argillaceo-calcareous  earth,  so  that  it  would 
seem  impossible  to  exhaust  a  soil  of  this  kind. 
In  favourable  seasons  they  gather  from  1500  to 
2500  Ibs.  of  cotton  in  the  seed  to  the  acre,  which 
when  the  seed  is  taken  out  by  the  cotton  gin,, 
leaves  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  per  cent,  in 
weight  of  marketable  raw  cotton.  It  is  consid- 
ered a  fair  crop  if  it  produces  one  bale  of  450  Ibs. 
of  such  cotton  to  the  acre,  and  where  for  every 
working  negro  on  the  plantation  six  or  eight 
bales  can  be  turned  out.  I  observed  that  it  was 
not  the  same  species  of  plant  I  had  seen  growing 
in  Tennessee,  and  was  told  that  it  was  the  Mex- 
ican white-seeded  cotton,  which  was  preferred  in. 
this  part  of  the  country,  because  it  yields  more 
to  the  acre  and  is  much  easier  gathered.  Some 
of  the  plants  were  near  six  feet  high,  and  sent 
forth  branches  in  great  profusion,  covered  with 
large  white  bolls  resembling  the  Guelder  Rose 
when  in  full  perfection.  I  counted  300  bolls  on 
one  stem,  but  Dr.  Jones's  overseer  told  me  that 
he  had  counted  as  many  as  360  on  one  stem  this 
season.  The  field  these  plants  were  in  contain- 
ed 300  acres,  and  it  was  so  dazzling  white  to 
look  upon  as  to  create  rather  a  painful  sensation 
in  the  eyes. 

Although  the  climate  in  this  latitude,  33°  40', 
is  well  fitted  for  the  cotton  plant,  yet  I  am  in- 
formed that  farther  to  the  south,  in  31°  30',  it 
flourishes  still  more;  for  when  the  first  set  of 
blossoms  of  the  cotton  plant  is  going  to  seed, 
the  plant,  in  congenial  climes,  puts  out  "new 
buds,"  which  also  come  to  maturity ;  and  where 
the  climate  is  so  propitious  as  to  give  the  plant 
all  the  advantages  or  a  free  growth,  unchecked 
by  early  or  late  frosts,  it  can  be  gathered  three 
times. 

Notwithstanding  it  was  so  late  in  the  year, 
only  one  half  of  this  field  was  gathered,  and  the 
proprietor  was  now  on  a  journey  to  purchase  an 
additional  gang  of  slaves,  intending  to  plant  400 
acres  the  next  season. 

However  lightly  these  people  may  hold  the 
Mexicans,  whose  superiors  they  undoubtedly 
are  in  industry  and  enterprise,  yet  the  Mexicans 
stand  at  a  proud  moral  distance  from  them  in 
regard  to  slavery,  which  is  abolished  in  their 
republic.  What  can  be  more  abominable  than 
the  hypocritical  cant  with  which  these  people 
intrude  into  a  country  which  does  not  belong  to 
them!  To  believe  them,  they  have  no  motive 
but  to  establish  "  free  institutions,  civil  and  reli- 
gious." Yet,  in  defiance  of  human  freedom, 
just  laws,  and  true  religion,  they  proceed  to  con- 
summate their  real  purpose,  which  is  to  people; 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


125 


the  country  with  slaves  in  order  to  cover  it  with 
cotton  crops.  The  poor  slaves  I  saw  here  did 
not  appear  to  me  to  stand  any  higher  in  the  scale 
of  animal  existence  than  the  horse ;  the  horse 
does  his  daily  task,  eats  his  changeless  proven- 
der, and  at  night  is  driven  to  his  stable  to  be 
shut  in,  until  he  is  again  drawn  forth  at  the  ear- 
liest dawn  to  go  through  the  same  unpitied  rou- 
tine until  he  dies.  This  is  the  history  of  the 
slave  in  Texas,  differing  in  nothing  from  that 
of  the  horse,  except  that  instead  of  maize  and 
straw  he  is  supplied  with  a  little  salt  pork  to  his 
maize,  day  after  day,  without  any  change,  until 
death  relieves  him  from  his  wearisome  exist- 
ence. The  occupation  of  Texas  by  the  Ameri- 
cans, where  there  are  so  many  millions  of  acres 
of  the  most  fertile  cotton  lands,  will  convert  the 
old  slave-holding  part  of  the  United  States  into 
•a.  disgusting  nursery  for  young  slaves,  because 
the  black  crop  will  produce  more  money  to  the 
proprietors  than  any  other  crop  they  can  culti- 
vate. 

For  this  reason  the  insufficiency  of  the  Mexi- 
can Government  for  the  protection  of  their  own 
territory  appears  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
misfortunes  that  could  have  happened  to  the  hu- 
man family  in  our  times,  when  the  minds  of  men, 
especially  in  North  America,  were  gradually  in- 
clining to  the  universal  abolition  of  slavery.  In 
the  States  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  slavery 
was  no  longer  a  profitable  state  of  things:  tobac- 
co had  exhausted  the  best  soils,  and  the  planta- 
tions, with  very  few  exceptions,  no  longer  main- 
tained even  the  slaves.  As  the  slaves  became 
gradually  a  burden  to  their  masters,  these  last 
would  have  got  into  a  calmer  state  of  mind  in 
regard  to  slavery,  and  been  more  disposed  to 
concur  in  some  humane  legislation  for  its  aboli- 
tion, by  declaring  all  black  children  to  be  free 
who  were  born  after  a  prospective  period ;  so  that 
the  change  from  slavery  to  freedom  being  grad- 
ual would  scarcely  have  been  felt,  and,  as  had 
before  occurred  in  the  State  of  New  York  by  the 
enactment  of  a  statute  which  conferred  immor- 
tal honour  upon  the  people  of  that  State,  the  day 
of  universal  emancipation  would  have  arrived 
undreaded  and  almost  unperceived. 

The  examples  of  two  such  States  as  Virginia 
and  Maryland,  both  of  which,  and  especially  the 
first,  have  produced  such  eminent  men,  would 
have  had  great  weight  with  the  other  slave-hold- 
ing States,  and  perhaps  have  led  the  way  to  an 
universal  abolition.  But  a  boundless  field  is 
now  opened  for  the  extension  of  slavery  to  a 
country  that  had  been  happily  freed  from  it;  and 
it  is  much  to  be  feared  that  the  evil,  which  al- 
most seemed  as  if  it  were  about  to  cease  from 
self-exhaustion,  will,  at  some  not  very  distant 
day,  present  itself  with  such  a  fearful  aspect  as 
to  menace  the  suppression  of  all  rational  civil 
government  where  slavery  prevails.  In  the  re- 
cent history  of  the  civil  wars  of  the  South  Amer- 
ican States  we  have  seen  what  desperate  uses 
have  been  made  of  the  negro  race  and  the  mixed 
breeds  called  Sambos  and  by  other  names  pro- 
ceeding from  it;  and,  as  similar  causes  will 
produce  like  effects  at  opportune  seasons,  we 
may  well  look  with  apprehension  to  a  future 
time,  when  the  negro  race  and  its  congeners,  who 
already  count  by  millions,  may  strive,  though  it 
is  to  be  hoped  in  vain,  for  the  mastery  over  our 
own  descendants.  These  are  opinions  that  give 
mortal  offence  to  the  existing  generation  of  slave- 
dealing  Americans,  but  transactions  of  this  kind 
are  pregnant  with  immense  consequences  that 


must  influence  the  future  fate  of  their  country; 
nor  can  observers  who  believe  in  the  respon- 
sibility of  man  for  his  actions  be  deterred  Irom 
thinking  that  their  descendants  will  not  be  able 
to  escape  that  retribution  which  nations  as  well 
as  individuals  owe  to  the  violated  laws  of  hu- 
manity and  justice.  This  is  exactly  a  case  to 
which  the  awful  words,  "  I  will  visit  the  sins  of 
the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generations,"  most  manifestly  apply. 

On  the  edge  of  this  prairie,  and  in  various  sit- 
uations not  far  distant  from  the  river,  is  a  chain 
of  lakes  like  that  near  the  Mammelle  in  Arkan- 
sas, and  which  evidently  are  upon  the  line  of  an 
ancient  bed  of  the  river.  Five  miles  south  of 
Lost  Prairie  is  Little  Prairie,  a  small  patch  of 
fertile  land  of  about  150  acres;  and  five  miles 
farther  south  of  it  is  Fisher's  Prairie,  consisting 
of  1500  acres  of  good  land.  To  the  north-west 
of  Lost  Prairie  are  two  others  of  considerable 
extent,  which  go  by  the  name  of  Elam's  Prairie 
and  Hickman's  Prairie.  The  woodland  around 
these  would  in  any  other  country  be  deemed  to 
be  land  of  the  first  quality;  but  the  people  here 
are  spoiled  by  the  possession  of  land  that  mere- 
ly wants  fencing  and  ploughing;  any  land  that 
requires  to  be  cleared  and  drained,  whatever  its 

Suality  may  be,  they  consider  a  "  hard  bargain." 
am  not  surprised  at  this:  the  land  of  Lost  Prai- 
rie would  spoil  any  farmer;  it  not  only  is  surpri- 
singly fertile,  but  lies  so  high  and  dry  that  the 
black  mould  resembles  heaps  of  ashes,  and  con- 
sequently requires  no  draining.  Last  year  the 
summer  was  intensely  hot,  and  one  of  the  lakes, 
which  covered  a  great  area  of  country,  but  was 
not  deep,  suffered  so  much  by  evaporation,  that 
it  could  not  preserve  its  fish,  which  all  died,  and 
were  to  be  seen  floating  on  the  water.  The  in- 
habitants, too,  sometimes  pay  dearly  for  the  pos- 
session of  this  beautiful  place,  and  were  exceed- 
ingly sickly  last  year. 

On  the  sand-hills,  about  fourteen  miles  south- 
west of  this  place,  there  is  a  kind  of  muscadel 
grape  growing,  which  is  very  rich  and  sweet; 
the  plant  runs  on  the  ground  and  bears  an  am- 
ber-coloured fruit.  The  other  wild  grape-vines 
in  the  woodland  bottoms  climb  the  loftiest  trees, 
their  stems  hanging  from  gieat  heights  like  huge 
boas,  and  are  frequently  nine  inches  in  diameter. 
I  made  a  collection  of  such  vines  as  1  thought 
might  be  cultivated  with  success,  and  put  them 
up  with  some  other  things  in  wet  moss,  and  the 
last  thing  I  did,  after  finishing  my  examination 
of  the  neighbourhood,  was  to  cut  a  fine  stick  of 
the  Bois  d'Arc;  then  seating  myself  upon  my 
faithful  Missouri,  amidst  all  sorts  of  bundles  and 
sticks,  I  turned  my  back  upon  the  fair  and  sun- 
ny fields  of  Texas,  now  doomed  to  the  curse  of 
slave-labour,  and  on  as  serene,  beautiful,  and 
soft  a  December  morning  as  ever  was  graced  by 
a  cloudless  sky  in  Italy,  I  once  more  reached  the 
banks  of  Red  River. 


CHAPTER  XXXV, 

Course  and  ancient  Channels  of  Red  River — The  Great 
Raft— Method  adopted  of  cutting  it  out— Danger  to  which 
New  Orleans  is  exposed  —  Fight  betw.ict  a  Man  and  a 
Panther— Tragical  Story  of  a  Hunter — Comical  relation 
of  a  Solo  played  by  a  Negro  to  a  Gang  of  Wolves— Fossil 
Oysters  in  the  Saline. 

THIS  important  river,  the  *Rio  Roxo  of  the 

Spanish  discoverers,  takes  its  rise  in  the  Rocky 


126 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


Mountains,  and  after  flowing  to  the  east  through 
immense  plains  is  compelled,  when  it  reaches 
the  mountainous  country  of  Arkansas,  to  deflect 
a  little  to  the  south.  On  reaching  the  point 
where  I  was  now  about  to  cross  it,  it  takes 
course  a  little  west  of  south,  as  far  as  the  33rd 
degree  of  N.  lat. ;  when  it  changes  again,  and 
takes  up  a  channel  to  the  E.  of  S.,  until  it  near- 
ly strikes  the  31st  degree  of  N.  lat. ;  here  it  in- 
clines to  the  north,  receives  the  waters  of  Black 
River,  and,  with  its  increased  volume,  forces 
its  way  almost  due  south,  and  joins  the  Missis- 
sippi. In  its  entire  line  it  is  remarkable  for  a 
tortuous  and  serpentine  course,  and  has  fre- 
quently abandoned  its  channel  in  particular  lo- 
calities, the  ancient  lines  of  which  can  always 
be  traced.  From  the  point  where  it  turns  to 
the  east  and  north,  a  little  north  of  the  31st  de- 
gree of  N.  lat.,  it  appears  to  have  once  flowed 
south  down  the  line  of  the  Atchafalaya  River 
into  the  bay  bearing  that  name  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  not  to  have  joined  the  Mississippi. 
There  is  a  chain  of  lagoons  on  that  line  still 
choked  up  with  rafts  of  dead  timber,  which, 
when  it  had  accumulated  in  sufficient  quanti- 
ties, no  doubt  caused  the  current  to  deflect  to 
the  east,  and  gave  the  river  its  present  direction 
into  the  Mississippi.  These  chains  of  lagoons, 
which  are  invariably  upon  the  line  of  an  ancient 
channel,  abound  both  on  the  north  and  south 
sides  of  Red  River,  and  are  amongst  the  imme- 
diate causes  of  the  insalubrity  of  the  climate 
during  certain  months  of  the  year.  It  was  one 
of  those  extensive  lagoons  on  the  Mexican  side 
of  Red  River,  upon  the  beautiful  tract  of  land 
over  which  I  passed,  which  had  lost  its  fish  in 
consequence  of  excessive  evaporation,  the  wa- 
ter having  become  glairy  and  incapable  of  sus- 
taining them. 

In  those  remote  periods  when  the  False 
Washita  and  other  tributaries  of  Red  River 
were  working  out  their  channels,  the  deposits 
of  dead  timber  must  have  been  immense,  not 
only  filling  the  channel  of  Red  River  in  the  first 
instance  down  the  line  of  the  Atchafalaya,  but 
subsequently  blocking  up  extensive  portions  of 
its  existing  course  to  the  Mississippi ;  and  it 
has  frequently  happened  that,  after  those  rafts 
have  compelled  the  river  to  change  its  course, 
the  same  causes  operating  upon  the  new  line, 
have  turned  the  river  back  again  into  its  old 
channel  where  it  has  forced  its  way  through  the 
raft  it  had  formerly  deposited.  We  have  evi- 
dence of  this  not  far  from  the  junction  of  Red 
River  with  the  Mississippi,  in  the  fragments  of 
those  rafts  which  are  still  to  be  seen  sticking 
out  of  the  banks  of  the  stream,  the  main  body 
having  rotted  away  from  the  point  which  ter- 
minates what  is  called  the  Great  Raft,  and  pass- 
ed down  with  the  current  into  the  Mississippi. 
Similar  instances  of  this  kind  of  operation,  but 
of  still  greater  antiquity,  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
banks  of  the  upper  part  of  the  Missouri,  where 
the  river  has  cut  through  beds  of  lignite. 

Of  the  extent  of  these  deposits  of  dead  timber 
something  like  an  adequate  idea  can  be  formed 
by  giving  some  details  of  the  nature  and  extent 
of  that  particular  one  called  the  Great  Raft,  and 
of  those  means  adopted  to  remove  it,  which  do 
so  much  honour  to  the  Congress  that  authorised 
them,  and  to  Captain  Shreve,  the  officer  to 
whom  the  execution  of  the  work  was  entrusted. 


When  this  intelligent  and  energetic  man  came 
upon  the  ground  in  the  spring  of  1833,  he  found 
that  the  raft  extended  up  the  bed  of  the  river 
for  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  Not  that  the 
whole  channel  of  the  river  was  blocked  up  by 
it,  but  the  dead  timber  occupying  one-third  of 
the  breadth  of  the  river,  the  whole  stream  had 
consequently  become  unnavigable,  numerous 
mud  islands  having  been  formed  everywhere, 
especially  on  the  surface  of  the  raft,  and  tree 
and  bushes  growing  on  them  all.  Not  far  from 
the  line  of  the  river  were  numerous  lagoons  and 
swamps — once  its  ancient  bed — into  which  the 
river  passed  by  bayous  and  low  places ;  these 
he  stopped  up  with  timber  taken  from  the  raft,i 
and  confining  the  stream  to  its  bed,  produced  a 
current  of  three  miles  an  hour ;  whereas,  be- 
fore he  began  his  operations,  he  found  the  river 
quite  dead,  and  without  current  for  forty  miles 
below  the  southern  termination  of  the  raft.  As 
soon  as  a  current  was  established,  he,  by  means 
of  huge  floating  saw-mills,  worked  by  steam, 
cut  portions  of  the  raft  out,  and  let  them  float 
down  the  stream.  At  length  the  current  be- 
came sufficiently  lively  to  wear  away  the  mud- 
banks  and  islands,  and  give  an  average  depth 
of  twenty-five  feet  to  the  river.  During  the 
first  season  of  his  operations  he  succeeded  in 
removing  about  seventy  miles  of  the  whole  mass 
of  the  Great  Raft,  and  it  is  now  confidently  be- 
lieved that  a  good  steamboat  navigation  will 
soon  be  opened  to  its  farthest  extent ;  so  that, 
not  only  the  salubrity  of  the  country  will  be 
much  improved,  but  an  immense  quantity  of 
fertile  lands  will  be  drained  and  brought  to  their 
value,  to  indemnify  the  government  for  the  ex- 
pense. 

The  deflection  from  their  courses  of  those  no- 
ble rivers  that  flow  in  the  southern  portions  of 
the  United  States,  is  a  matter  of  the  deepest  im- 
portance to  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries  ; 
both  as  respects  their  navigation,  their  health, 
the  drainage  of  their  lands,  and  the  value  of 
their  landed  property.  Any  one  who  looks  at 
the  course  of  the  river  Mississippi  on  the  map, 
will  see  that,  when  it  reaches  the  31st  degree 
of  N.  lat.,  it  deflects  east  of  south,  and  pursues 
a  S.E.  course  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  passing  the 
city  of  New  Orleans  on  its  way.  But  as  nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  the  Mississippi  once 
continued  its  course  to  the  Gulf,  from  the  31st 
degree  by  the  line  of  the  Atchafalaya,  it  is  evi- 
dent that,  if  ever  the  river,  at  the  point  of  con- 
fluence with  the  mouth  of  Red  River,  should  be 
permitted  to  regain  its  ancient  channel,  the  city 
of  New  Orleans  will  be  in  danger  of  being  left 
high  and  dry,  and  the  present  bed  from  the  Ba- 
lize  upwards  of  becoming  a  line  of  lagoons  and 
swamps. 

Having  crossed  the  river,  I  again — after  a 
long  ride  of  36  miles — reached  the  hospitable 
mansion  of  Judge  Cross.  In  the  morning  I  pur- 
sued my  journey,  and,  coming  to  the  little  Mis- 
souri, found  the  waters  very  much  abated,  and 
no  ferryman  within  sight.  I  remembered  that 
the  house  was  at  some  distance  from  the  river, 
and  could  not  be  seen  from  it,  so  taking  a  horn 
which  I  found  suspended  from  a  tree  for  the 
purpose,  I  blew  in  vain  for  at  least  half  an  hour. 
Nobody  coming  to  ferry  me  across,  I  was  redu- 
ced to  the  necessity  of  attempting  to  ford  the 
river,  which  was  accomplished  with  great  in- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


127 


convenience  ;  for  Missouri  having  a  great  aver- 
sion to  passing  deep  streams,  and  not  knowing 
the  direction  of  the  ford,  which  was  in  an  ob- 
lique line,  I  got  completely  wet.  On  reaching 
the  house  I  found  two  vulgar  and  very  stupid 
white  women,  and  a  negress  ;  being  a  little  out 
of  humour  I  immediately  began  to  reproach 
them  with  not  sending  somebody  down  to  point 
out  the  ford,  when  the  old  negress  said  she  had 
told  Miss  Brindley  (her  mistress,  about  54  years 
old)  that  it  would  be  best  to  let  her  go  down 
and  see  who  was  blowing  the  horn,  but  that  she 
said,  "  She  reckoned  it  was  no  matter,  she  al- 
lowed they  would  find  the  way  across  somehow 
or  other."  Upon  this  I  said  some  very  severe 
things  to  the  young  lady,  and  begged  she  would 
never  be  so  inconsiderate  again,  as  it  might  be 
a  child  on  horseback,  or  an  invalid  incapable  of 
assisting  himself.  She  seemed  sensible  of  her 
fault,  for  she  said  if  I  would  eat  something  I 
should  have  nothing  to  pay  for  it. 

That  night  I  slept  at  Hignite's  again,  and 
starting  early  on  a  fine  cold  moonlight  morning, 
rode  on  to  Mrs.  Barkman's,  where  I  fed  my 
horse.  The  old  lady;  who  was  standing  at  th'e 
door  with  her  pipe  in  her  left  hand,  and  a  com- 
fortable chew  of  tobacco  in  her  cheek,  shook 
hands  heartily  with  me,  and  asked  me  how  I 
liked  Texas,  adding  before  I  could  give  her  an 
answer,  "  that  she  could  not  see  what  folks  was 

sich  fools  as  to  go  there  for."     Having 

forded  the  Caddo  without  difficulty,  I  hastened 
on  to  Mitchell's,  where  I  arrived  at  4  P.M.,  and 
found  my  son,  who  had  been  endeavouring  to 
amuse  himself  with  hunting,  but  was  thoroughly 
tired  of  the  wretched  fare  they  had  given  him. 
Not  feeling  disposed  to  see  any  more  of  it  my- 
self, and  rny  horse  appearing  fresh,  we  put  him 
into  the  waggon  again  after  half  an  hour's  rest, 
and  shouldering  the  rifle,  I  started  again  on  foot 
for  a  settler's  named  Dean,  about  seven  miles 
off,  leaving  my  son  to  come  on  with  the  vehicle. 
It  became  very  dark  when  I  got  to  the  marshy 
springy  ground,  within  four  miles  of  the  Washi- 
ta,  and  the  track  becoming  at  length  nothing 
but  mud  and  water,  I  was  compelled  to  get  into 
the  woods,  where  the  thickets  and  fallen  timber 
not  only  embarrassed  me  very  much,  but  now 
and  then,  on  account  of  the  darkness,  obliged 
me  to  regain  the  track,  that  I  might  be  sure  I 
was  in  the  right  direction.  Some  stories  that 
Hignite  had  related  to  me  about  the  panthers  in 
this  swamp,  intruded  themselves  also  a  little 
into  my  imagination.  He  said — what  I  had  be- 
fore heard — that  this  animal,  when  he  has  had 
poor  hunting  during  the  day,  watches  at  night 
on  a  log  or  on  the  branch  of  a  tree,  and  when 
he  has  an  opportunity,  will  spring  upon  a  man 
from  behind,  fasten  his  horrid  claws  into  his 
neck  and  back,  and  worry  him  to  death.  One 
unfortunate  man,  who  was  traversing  the  swamp 
during  the  last  autumn  at  night,  had  been  at- 
tacked in  this  way  ;  the  panther  succeeded  in 
fastening  himself  upon  the  man's  neck,  who, 
being  rendered  desperate,  at  length,  after  a  hard 
struggle,  got  the  beast's  head  under  his  left  arm, 
so  that  he  could  act  upon  the  offensive,  and 
thrust  his  right  hand  into  its  throat.  During  the 
conflict,  the  panther,  with  his  fangs,  tore  all  the 
veins  in  the  man's  face  and  neck  open,  and  se- 
verely lacerated  his  shoulders  and  back.  He 
succeeded,  however,  in  choking  the  beast,  and 


retained  strengt.i  enough  to  reach  his  home, 
where  he  died  soon  after. 

Now  I  was  constantly  running  against  branch- 
es of  trees  and  logs,  and  had  discovered,  when 
about  to  enter  the  swamp,  that  my  rifle  was  not  • 
loaded,  and  that  I  had  no  ammunition  with  me : 
besides,  there  was  my  son  behind,  slowly  ad- 
vancing with  a  tired  horse,  and  I  had  also  to 
think  of  him,  so  that  this  branch  of  zoology  oc- 
cupied a  great  deal  of  my  thoughts  during  this 
nocturnal  walk.  I  regretted  now  that  I  had  not 
provided  myself  with  a  Bowie  "knife.  Much  as 
the  practice  of  carrying  such  a  murderous  in- 
strument is  to  be  detested,  still  it  is  the  most 
effective  weapon  in  a  close  contest  with  one  of 
these  ferocious  animals ;  for  if,  upon  such  an 
occasion,  a  man  has  his  presence  of  mind  about 
him,  he  finds  an  opportunity  of  mortally  wound- 
ing an  adversary  that  exposes  so  large  a  frame 
to  his  knife  After  a  most  tedious  tramp  in  the 
dark,  tjirough  this  disagreeable  place,  T  at  length, 
saw  a  light,  and  walking  rip  found  it  was  Dean's. 
An  hour  afterwards  my  son  joined  me.  a  circum- 
stance that  rejoiced  me  exceedingly,  and  we-' 
proceeded  to  partake  of  an  indifferent  supper. 
The  people  of  the  house  said  the  swamp  was 
much  infested  with  wolves,  and  related  a  sin- 
gular story  of  a  hunter  who,  some  time  before, 
had  perished  through  his  own  cupidity.  The 
wolves  had  killed  so  many  calves  and  pigs  be- 
longing to  the  settlers,  that  they  at  length  re- 
solved to  raise  a  sum  of  money  by  subscription, 
and  to  give  two  dollars  a  head  for  every  wolf 
scalp.  This  man,  who  lived  alone  in  the  woods, 
and  was  an  experienced  hunter,  built  a  pen  in. 
the  swamp  of  open  logs,  ten  feet  high,  without 
a  roof;  and  having  killed  a  two-year  old  heifer, 
took  the  carcase  there  as  a  bait.  The  neigh- 
bours knew  what  he  was  doing,  but  as  nobody 
had  seen  him  for  several  days  some  of  them, 
went  one  morning  to  see  what  success  he  had 
had  ;  having  reached  the  place  they  found  the 
bones  of  the  heifer  outside,  and  thirty  dead 
wolves  which  he  had  shot  lying  near  them.  On 
looking  into  the  pen  they  saw  one  live  wolf  in 
it  and  the  man  dead,  with  most  of  his  flesh  torn 
from  him.  It  appeared  from  the  marks  around,, 
from  the  scratchings  upon  the  bark  of  the  logs, 
and  from  the  fact  of  one  of  the  top  ones  being 
thrown  down,  that  he  had  shot  thirty  from  the 
pen  whilst  they  were  devouring  the  meat,  but 
that  the  troop  had  been  so  numerous  and  raven- 
ous that,  smelling  the  man,  they  had  stormed 
the  pen  and  devoured  him.  The  one  in  the  pen 
was  wounded  and  had  not  been  able  to  escape. 

Whilst  upon  wolf  stories  I  must  record  a  less- 
tragical  one,  that  was  related  to  me  in  a  differ- 
ent" part  of  the  country.  There  had  been  a. 
merry-making  at  new  year  amongst  some  of 
the  settlers,  and  a  black,  who  had  a  wife  and 
children  about  three  miles  off,  and  who  played 
on  the  fiddle,  had  been  sent  for  to  play  "Virginia; 
reels"  to  the  young  people.  It  was  three  in  the 
morning  when  he  took  his  kit  under  his  arm  to 
return  home,  and  had  been  snowing  for  some 
time,  with  a  high  cold  wind  raging  that  drifted 
the  snow  into  heaps  wherever  he  passed  the 
clearings.  He  had  got  about  half  the  distance, 
exceedingly  fatigued,  and  wishing  he  was  at 
home  with  his  black  pickanninies,  when,  hav- 
ing just  left  an  extensive  swamp  which  ran  far 
into  the  country,  he  heard  a  strong  pack  of 


138 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


^wolves  "sing  out"  as  if  they  had  scent  of  some- 
thing. The  wolf,  when  in  a  famished  state,  has 
a  very  keen  scent,  and  can  detect  a  change  in 
the  air  at  great  distances ; 

"  Leva  il  muso,  odorando  il  vento  infido." 

/  pomessi  Sposi. 

And,  in  this  particular  instance,  it  happened  that 
they  scented  Mr.  Marcus  Luffett,  (Marquis  La 
Fayette) — for  such  was  the  name  he  was  known 
by— who  had  rather  a  strong  hrde.  He  had  very 
soon  reason  to  bfelieve  that  was  the  case  ;  the 
wolves  were  to  leeward  of  him,  and  were  evi- 
dently coining  in  his  direction  :  so,  feeling  as- 
sured of  this,  and  despairing  of  reaching  his 
home  in  time,  he  employed  all  his  powers  to 
reach  a  small  abandoned  cabin  in  a  clearing  by 
-the  road-side,  which  was  about  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  off;  the  roof  of  which  was  partly  destroy- 
ed, but  the  door  of  which  was  yet  hung.  On 
came  the  ferocious  animals,  barking  and  shriek- 
ing ;  they  were  upon  his  track,  and  great  were 
his  apprehensions  of  falling  into  their  power : 
but,  on  gaining  the  clearing,  he  fortunately  found 
the  snow  was  drifted  away  there,  and  did  not 
impede  him,  so  that  he  was  just  able  to  rush  in 
season  into  the  cabin  and  clamber  up  the  logs 
inside  to  a  rafter  that  ran  across.  The  door  he 
did  not  attempt  to  shut,  for  the  wolves  were 
within  ten  yards  of  him  when  he  entered,  and 
he  was  afraid  he  could  Hot  keep  it  shut  against 
the  pressure  of  a  large  body  of  desperate  ani- 
mals. Great  was  the  rage  of  the  wolves  when 
they  entered  at  being  balked  of  their  prey,  and, 
as  Mr.  Marcus  Luffett  observed,  "  Dey  carried 
on  jist  as  if  de  old  debbel  himself  was  inside  of 
ebery  one  of  dere  cossed  troats."  The  cabin 
was  at  one  time  quite  filled  with  them,  and  he 
said  that  they  went  in  and  out  and  round  the 
cabin,  to  see  if  there  was  any  place  by  which 
they  could  get  at  so  savoury  a  joint  as  that  which 
•was  hanging  up,  but  rather  too  high  in  the  larder. 
Finding  that  he  was  safe,  he  began  to  acquire 
confidence,  and  watching  his  opportunity  he 
scrambled  along  until  he  got  over  the  door ; 
and  there,  with  a  little  management,  he  con- 
trived with  his  legs  to  shut  a  great  number  of 
them  in  the  cabin.  Those  outside  appearing  to 
have  gone  away  to  look  for  other  game,  and 
those  inside  remaining  silent  with  their  glaring 
«yes  fixed  intently  upon  him,  the  Marquis,  who 
had  no  small  idea  of  his  skill,  now  thought  he 
would  treat  them  to  a  "  Virginia  reel,"  and 
forthwith  commenced  with  his  kit  to  astonish 
the  lupine  auditory  with  such  a  solo  as  they  had 
never  heard  before.  At  first  they  howled,  the 
performer  not  appearing  to  give  universal  satis- 
faction, but  day  beginning  to  dawn  and  finding 
they  could  not  get  out,  they  crouched  down  on 
the  floor  of  the  cabin  all  together,  and  remained 
silent.  As  soon  as  he  thought  the  morning  was 
sufficiently  advanced  to  remove  all  apprehen- 
sion from  those  outside,  he  got  through  a  hole 
in  the  roof,  and  hastened  to  his  family.  Imme- 
diately collecting  a  number  of  men  armed  with 
rifles  and  axes  he  returned  with  them  to  the 
cabin,  which  they  all  entered  by  the  hole  from 
whence  he  had  escaped.  The  wolves  were 
crouched  together  as  he  had  left  them,  and 
showed  now  as  sneaking  a  disposition  as  it  had 
before  been  furious.  They  shot  no  less  than 
thirty-seven  ;  all  the  skins  were  given  to  Mr. 
Marcus  Luffett,  and  the  neighbours  subscribed 


twenty-five  dollars  in  cash,  as  some  return  for 
the  important  service  he  had  rendered  them  by 
the  destruction  of  so  many  depredators  upon 
their  calves  and  pigs. 

Pursuing  our  journey  very  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, we  re-crossed  the  Washita,  and  leaving  the 
road  on  the  left  by  which  we  had  come  from  the 
Hot  Springs,  we  reached  Trammel's  and  stop- 
ped awhile  to  feed  our  horse.  Here  I  saw  a 
number  of  fine  young  turkeys  that  had  been 
hatched  by  a  tame  one,  from  eggs  which  had 
been  taken  from  a  wild  bird.  Some  domestic 
turkeys  were  running  with  them,  but  those  of 
the  wild  breed  were  easily  distinguishable ;  they 
were  more  dark  and  glossy  in  their  plumage, 
and  had  a  very  quick  and  bright  eye :  their  move- 
ment* too  were  much  more  lively  than  those  of 
the  tame  ones.  One  of  the  women  in  the  house 
told  me  that  they  were  not  tender  and  difficult 
to  raise  like  the  chicks  of  the  domestic  breed, 
but  were  as  hardy  as  young  chickens.  All  the 
wild  turkeys  that  I  have  yet  seen  are  of  a  dark 
glossy  plumage,  nor  do  I  hear  of  any  person  hav- 
ing seen  a  wild  one  which  was  white  or  yellow. 

We  were  now  upon  our  old  road  again,  and 
the  petro-siliceous  hills  and  ferruginous  con- 
glomerates. Towards  evening  we  crossed  the 
Saline,  and  whilst  my  son  took  our  vehicle  to 
our  old  "  Little  Pickey"  quarters,  I  examined 
the  beach  of  the  Saline,  which  had  fallen  very 
much,  and  found  some  fine  valves  of  fossil  oys- 
ters in  the  rocky  bed  of  the  channel.  It  appears 
that  all  the  streams  from  Little  Rock  to  Red 
River,  which  run  to  the  south,  have  tertiary  de- 
posits in  them,  as  well  as  those  which  run  to 
the  east  and  empty  into  the  Arkansas.  These 
deposits  containing  great  quantities  of  marine 
shells,  afford  conclusive  proof  that  the  ocean  at 
one  of  the  most  recent  geological  periods  has 
flowed  up  to  the  base  of  the  highlands  from  Can- 
ada to  Red  River,  tertiary  deposits  existing  on 
the  line  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  at  Martha's  Vine- 
yard, and  at  innumerable  localities  from  thence 
southward  to  Red  River. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Reach  Little  Rock  again — A  pleasant  Christmas  Eve— Em- 
bark in  a  Steamer  for  New  Orleans — A  painful  Moment 
—Structure  of  the  banks  of  the  Arkansas— Snags  and 
Sawyers  explained — Frequent  Change  of  the  Channel  of 
the  River — Cotton  Plantations — Cause  of  the  Variegated 
Structure  of  the  Banks  explained. 

EARLY  in  the  morning,  with  a  bright  moon- 
light, we  pursued  our  journey  by  the  old  road  to 
Little  Rock,  and  ere  we  had  proceeded  three 
miles  the  largest  and  the  finest  flock  of  wild  tur- 
keys we  had  yet  seen  crossed  the  road,  issuing 
from  the  woods  one  after  the  other,  all  full 
grown  and  fat,  in  their  richest  black  and  brown 
plumage.  Their  extreme  beauty  and  the  happi- 
ness they  seemed  to  enjoy  were  their  protection  ; 
and  after  admiring  them  we  drove  on  and  reach- 
ed Little  Rock  about  4  P.M.,  after  exactly  a 
month's  absence.  Here  we  found  the  same 
people  and  the  same  unvarying  occurrences  ; 
we  had  seen  everything  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  there  was  nothing  now  to  tempt  us  to  pro- 
long our  stay.  We  therefore  devoted  our  re- 
maining time  to  packing  up  our  collections, 
bringing  up  journals,  and  preparing  for  our  de- 
parture ;  but  we  were  still  desirous  of  seeing 


TRAVELS   IN   AMERICA. 


129 


other  portions  of  the  southern  country,  and  it 
was  a  matter  which  engaged  our  earnest  atten- 
tion how  we  could  best  accomplish  this.  The 
rainy  season  was  about  to  set  in,  the  roads 
would  be  extremely  bad,  and  as  the  streams 
would  he  swollen  so  as  to  be  impassable  in 
many  places  for  our  vehicle,  we  determined  to 
leave  it  behind.  As  to  our  horse,  both  my  son 
and  myself  had  become  attached  to  him;  he 
was  a  beauliful  animal,  was  docile,  had  served 
us  faithfully,  and  we  were  unwilling  to  part  with 
him.  After  much  deliberation,  therefore,  it  was 
determined  that  my  son  should  make  Missouri 
the  partner  of  his  fortunes,  and  should  follow 
an  entirely  new  line  of  country  until  we  met 
again  in  the  Atlantic  states.  As  to  myself,  I 
determined  to  carry  out  the  plan  I  had  formed 
of  examining  the  Arkansas  river  to  its  mouth, 
and  proceeding  thence  down  the  Mississippi  to 
New  Orleans,  return  by  way  of  Mobile  in  Ala- 
bama, the  territory  of  the  Creek  Indians,  the 
states  of  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  North  Caro- 
lina, and  Virginia.  By  taking  these  two  distinct 
lines  of  country  we  should  have  an  opportunity 
of  examining  4000  miles  more  of  the  surface 
and  the  strata  south  of  the  Potomac,  an  amount 
of  observation  which,  added  to  the  2000  miles 
at  least  which  we  had  already  made,  would  fur- 
nish a  great  many  data  for  forming  an  approxi- 
mate view  of  the  geology  of  the  southern  por- 
tions of  the  United  States. 

The  river  Arkansas  was  at  this  time  so  low 
that  the  steamers,  now  on  their  way,  were  un- 
able to  reach  Little  Rock,  but  the  barometer  had 
given  decided  indications  of  a  change  in  the 
weather,  and  I  was  sure  that  rain  would  fall 
soon.  We  therefore  held  ourselves  ready  to 
start  as  soon  as  this  should  take  place,  for  the 
steamers,  especially  if  they  are  bound  down  the 
river,  sometimes  only  touch  at  Little  Rock  for 
an  hour  or  two,  and  if  a  boat  is  missed  at  this 
time  of  the  year  a  traveller,  who  has  no  other 
means  of  getting  away,  may  be  detained  all  the 
•winter.  As  the  period  of  our  departure  ap- 
jfroached  I  perceived  that  the  Swiss  gentleman, 
Mr.  T********,  who  has  been  named  in  this 
journal,  began  to  despond ,  we  had  seen  a  great 
deal  of  him  ;  he  was  a  person  of  various  infor- 
'mation  and  considerable  talent,  and  appeared  to 
feel  as  if  he  were  shipwrecked  for  life,  and 
thrown  upon  a  barren  coast  without  any  rational 
hope  of  ever  being  restored  to  society  again,  or 
of  meeting  a  brother  he  had  in  the  United  States, 
but  whom  he  was  without  the  means  of  joining. 
I  could  not  bear  to  see  a  gentlemanly  person  of 
so  much  merit  left  in  such  a  painful  and  hope- 
less condition  :  if  I  had  left  Little  Rock  without 
him,  I  should  have  felt  as  much  remorse  as  if  I 
had  abandoned  one  whom  I  was  bound  to  pro- 
tect ;  and  having  got  into  that  sort  of  kind  feel- 
ing, I  thought  it  right  to  let  in  a  ray  of  sunshine 
upon  his  existence,  and  proposed  to  him  to  ac- 
company me.  I  imagine  Mr.  T********  packed 
up  his  portmanteau  with  as  much  pleasure  as  I 
had  done  my  own,  and  from  that  moment  he  be 
came  my  companion  for  the  rest  of  my  journey 
Whilst  we  were  waiting  for  the  river  to  rise 
great  preparations  were  making  to  celebrate 
Christmas  Eve  by  a  ball  at  one  of  the  taverns, 
and  although  I  am  not  a  great  frequenter  of  balls 
I  was  very  anxious  to  bp  present  at  this 
Christmas  Eve,  even  in  the  older  parts  of  the 


United  States,  is  not,  I  believe,  distinguished  by 
any  kind  of  festivity  amongst  Protestants,  with 
the  exception  of  the  few  Episcopalian  families 
who  still  adhere  to  the  festal  customs  of  the 
mother  country  ;  for  the  Presbyterians  and  oth- 
r  sectarians  rather  seem  to  prefer  to  desecrate 
than  to  celebrate  the  great  Christian  festivals, 
and  as  they  form  an  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  population,  Christmas  or  Christmas  Eve  are 
seldom  mentioned.  But  a  celebration  of  Christ- 
mas Eve  at  Little  Rock,  of  all  the  places  in  the 
world,  could  not  fail  to  be  something  very  extra- 
ordinary, and  worth  attending,  since  it  was 
probable  that  all  the  devotional  piety  of  the  ter- 
ritory of  Arkansas  would  break  out  upon  the  oc- 
casion. A  faint  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  affair 
and  of  the  style  of  the  ball  had  been  already 
given  to  me  by  a  person  who  had  attended  one 
the  preceding  year.  There  were  about  100  men 
and  3  women.  The  men  had  their  hats  on,  and 
danced  armed  with  pistols  and  bowie  knives, 
whilst  the  landlord,  assisted  by  two  of  his  peo- 
ple, with  his  hat  cocked  on  one  side,  took  pitch- 
ers of  strong  whiskey-punch  round  the  room, 
and  clapping  the  gentlemen  on  the  back,  gave 
them  to  drink.  As  this  was  the  principal  busi- 
ness of  the  evening,  and  the  pitchers  unceasingly 
went  round,  the  whole  party  soon  got  amazing- 
ly drunk,  but  were  very  good-natured,  "  for  there 
were  only  a  few  shots  fired  in  fun." 

Unluckily  for  our  chance  of  seeing  the  ball,  it 
began  to  rain  heavily  in  the  night  of  the  22nd, 
and  continued  the  next  morning,  when  news 
reached  Little  Rock  that  a  steamer  from  the 
Mississippi  had  arrived  within  twenty  miles  of 
the  town,  and  would  only  remain  for  passen- 
gers until  one  o'clock  P.M.  As  soon  as  we 
heard  the  intelligence  and  had  reason  to  believe 
it  was  correct,  we  got  everything  into  our  ve- 
hicle, and  mounting  a  hired  horse,  I  rode  on  be- 
fore, to  detain  the  steamer,  leaving  my  son  and 
Mr.  T********  to  follow  in  the  waggon.  Hav- 
ing crossed  the  Arkansas  in  the  ferry-boat  I 
pursued  the  military  road  to  Memphis  for  near 
three  miles,  and  then  turned  into  an  indifferent 
road  running  parallel  to  the  river.  When  I  had 
got  about  fifteen  miles  I  learned  at  a  cabin 
where  I  called  for  information,  that  I  had  still 
ten  miles  to  go  at  least,  as  there  was  a  chain 
of  lagoons  to  head,  which,  they  said,  had  been 
an  old  bed  of  the  river,  but  that  for  some  dis- 
tance before  I  should  get  to  the  place  called 
Eagle  Bend,  where  the  steamer  was,  there  was 
no  longer  a  track  of  any  kind  for  a  waggon. 
This  was  discouraging;  the  rain  was  pouring 
down  all  the  time,  the  road  was  bad,  and  it  was 
becoming  problematical  whether  we  could  ef- 
fect our  object  at  all,  for  the  steamer,  not  know- 
ing we  were  on  the  road,  would  have  no  motive 
for  waiting  beyond  the  appointed  hour.  How- 
ever, as  everything  might  depend  on  my  push- 
ing on,  I  took  the  best  directions  I  could  get, 
and  hastening  forward,  soon  came  to  a  deep 
and  bad  bayou,  which  I  got  across  with  some 
difficulty,  quite  despairing  of  their  being  able  to 
get  through  it  with  the  waggon.  I  now  came 
upon  alternate  beds  of  sand  and  mud,  which 
had  been  deposited  when  the  river  overflowed 
its  banks  in  June,  1833,  a  period  when  many 
plantations  were  destroyed  by  deep  deposits  of 
sand.  To  these  succeeded  thick  corn-brakes 
and  a  total  termination  to  the  track :  it  seemed 


130 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


as  if  everything  had  combined  to  prevent  the 
possibility  of  a  four-wheeled  carriage  reaching 
the  steamer.  The  afternoon  was  now  wearing 
away,  so,  dismounting  and  fastening  my  horse 
to  a  tree,  I  walked  through  the  brake  to  the 
bank  of  the  Arkansas,  thinking  there  might  he 
a  chance,  as  the  land  was  not  very  low,  of  my 
seeing  the  steamer  if  she  had  not  yet  got  under 
way.  Never  was  man  more  startled  or  more 
pleased  than  I  was  at  hearing  the  steam  blow- 
ing off  from- the  boat,  which  was  lying  moored 
to  the  bank,  almost  immediately  below  me. 
This,  in  fact,  was  Eagle  Bend,  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Arkansas,  which  jutted  out  into  the  riv- 
er, and  was  about  twenty  feet  high.  Hastening 
down  the  bank  I  hailed  the  steamer,  which  was 
that  instant  getting  under  way,  and  giving  the 
necessary  information  to  the  captain,  he  agreed 
to  leave  his  yawl  with  one  of  his  men,  to  take 
us  off,  while  he  dropped  down  to  a  wood-yard 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  to  take  in  fuel. 
Having  come  to  a  good  understanding  with  the 
man  in  the  yawl,  I  now  remounted,  and  hasten- 
ing back,  came  up  with  the  waggon  about  five 
miles  back,  which  was  much  sooner  than  I  ex- 
pected, notwithstanding  my  knowledge  of  the 
resolution  of  my  son  in  cases  of  difficulty.  In 
crossing  the  bayou  they  had  found  it  necessary 
to  unload  the  carriage,  take  the  body  and  wheels 
off,  and  carry  the  pieces  up  to  the  opposite 
bank,  as  they  found  it  to  be  quite  impossible  to 
draw  it  up  with  the  horse.  We  now  all  pro- 
ceeded towards  the  yawl,  when,  in  crossing  an- 
other bad  place,  the  shafts  of  the  waggon  got 
broken,  and  here  they  were  obliged  to  stop 
whilst  I  rode  on  and  called  the  man  in  the  yawl 
to  our  assistance.  Tying  the  horses  up  in  the 
cane-brake  we  gave  the  man  one  of  the  trunks 
— my  son  and  myself  carried  the  other,  and  Mr. 
T********  managed  to  take  the  portfolio  and 
some  instruments  I  had.  Night  was  just  set- 
ting in  when  we  reached  the  yawl,  excessively 
fatigued,  and  succeeded  in  getting  our  luggage 
into  it.  All  this  time  the  steamer  had  been 
making  signals  for  us  to  come  off,  but  we  were 
too  busy  to  mind  them.  The  man  was  in  my 
interest  now,  and,  as  he  sensibly  observed,  "  If 
the  captain  wanted  him  particular,  he  could  jist 
as  well  cross  the  river  and  lend  us  a  hand." 

The  most  painful  part  of  the  business  was  yet 
to  be  gone  through.  My  son,  who  Siari  been  so 
long  my  faithful  companion  in  much  difficulty 
and  danger,  was  now  to  part  from  me,  and  to 
be  left  behind  in  a  wilderness,  without  any  one 
to  assist  him.  I  desired  him  to  ride  his  horse 
to  a  cabin  a  few  miles  back,  and  send  the  peo- 
ple for  the  broken  carriage  the  next  morning. 
I  knew  his  address  and  ability,  and  felt  assured 
that  he  would  do  very  well.  But  the  moment 
of  parting  was  painful  to  both  of  us,  and  as  we 
rowed  down  the  river  and  beheld  him  standing 
on  the  desolate  bank  of  the  Arkansas,  watching 
our  boat  in  the  imperfect  twilight,  I  was  very 
much  affected,  and  thought  it  would  have  been 
better  to  have  spared  us  both  such  a  moment. 
Night  had  set  in  when  we  reached  the  steamer, 
which  seemed  clean  and  nice.  I  got  a  very 
good  berth  for  myself,  and  should  have  been  per- 
fectly comfortable  if  my  mind  had  been  at  ease. 

Our  steamer  got  under  way  at  break  of  day, 
December  24th,  and  we  proceeded  down  the 
mcr,  which  in  this  low  state  of  the  water  is 


about  300  yards  wide.  Nothing  can  be  more 
monotonous  than  the  country  through  which 
this  muddy  stream  holds  its  course,  the  whole 
area  being  a  fertile  alluvial  deposit  of  nearly  the 
same  level,  in  which  the  water  has  worn  a 
channel,  leaving  banks  from  20  to  30  feet  high, 
composed  of  fluviatile  deposits  of  clay  and  sand 
of  different  colours,  of  which  a  dull  red  prepon- 
derates. Sometimes  the  banks  rise  to  forty 
feet,  in  which  situations  the  land  is  free  from 
inundation.  When  we  had  made  about  25 
miles,  we  passed  some  high  banks  called  the 
Red  Pine  Bluffs,  from  100  to  130  feet  high, 
which  the  river  is  rapidly  wearing  down,  un- 
dermining them  beneath,  and  causing  huge 
masses  to  fall  incessantly  from  the  top.  This- 
process  is  more  interesting  to  the  geologist  than 
to  the  cotton  planter,  for  the  fresh  fracture  ena-r 
bles  him  to  trace  for  great  distances  ttie  party- 
coloured  deposits  which  alternate  with  each, 
other,  some  being  red,  some  white,  some  gray,, 
and  oftentimes  all  of  them  intermixed  together. 
The  comparative  height  of  these  Red  Pine 
Bluffs  enables  them  to  assume  an  important 
appearance  in  a  country  where  the  surrounding' 
land  is  at  a  level  of  about  25  feet  above  the  wa- 
ter. Farther  down,  about  20  miles,  we  came  to 
similar  bluffs  of  a  lighter  colour,  called  the 
White  Bluffs ;  and  about  30  miles  still  lower 
down  we  reached  the  Red  Pine  Bluffs,  which, 
are  higher  than  any  of  the  others.  As  we  had 
to  stop  occasionally  to  take  in  wood,  I  availed 
myself  always  of  the  detention  to  examine  the 
banks  where  they  were  accessible.  At  the  Red 
Pine  Bluffs  there  is  a  bed  of  limestone  formed 
of  broken-down  oyster-shells  like  those  in  the 
Saline,  which  was  the  first  calcareous  deposit 
I  met  with  in  the  banks. 

The  whole  course  of  this  river  is  extremely 
serpentine,  the  general  direction  to  the  Missis- 
sippi being  S.E.  ;  but  the  channel  every  five  or 
six  miles  describes  curves,  sometimes  going 
N.E.,  sometimes  S.W-  Upon  such  occasions 
the  main  channel  is  alternately  on  the  right  and 
left  bank  of  the  river;  when  on  the  right  bank 
an  extensive  sandy  beach  projects  itself  from 
the  opposite  shore,  and  sometimes  encroaches 
so  far  into  the  channel  as  to  render  it  difficult* 
to  get  the  steamer  through.  We  often  got 
aground  in  less  than  three  feet  water,  but  the 
captain  was  a  man  of  experience  and  resolu- 
tion, and  always  succeeded  in  backing  the 
steamer  or  forcing  it  through  the  mud,  although, 
it  sometimes  caused  a  delay  of  several  hours  to 
get  the  boat  off  again.  These  beaches  some- 
times contain  more  than  fifty  acres,  and  are 
thrown  up  by  the  stream  as  it  abrades  the 
banks  at  the  foot  of  which  it  runs.  In  the 
course  of  this  voyage  I  received  the  most  com- 
plete practical  lesson  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
these  streams  get  into  a  serpentine  course,  that 
had  ever  been  presented  to  me  on  so  large  a 
scale.  Masses  covered  with  trees  and  canes 
were  constantly  falling  from  the  banks,  and  be- 
ing carried  to  the  bottom  of  the  channel  with 
immense  quantities  of  clay  about  their  roots,  in 
some  places  almost  filled  the  river  with  what 
are  called  snags  and  sawyers.  The  first  are 
trees  or  stout  branches  firmly  fixed  in  the  mud, 
sometimes  appearing  above,  sometimes  being 
under  the  water,  and  these  frequently  impale 
the  steamers  if  a  good  look-out  is  not  kept : 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


131 


the  sawyers  are  flexible  and  elastic  branches, 
over  a  part  of  which  the  current  passes,  and 
presses  them  into  the  water,  from  which  they 
rise  by  their  elasticity,  producing  a  sawing  mo- 
tion up  and  down.  These  not  only  embarrass 
the  navigation  excessively,  but  when  they  ex- 
tend densely  from  the  bank  they  once  grew 
upon,  offer  a  point  of  resistance  to  the  current, 
which  then  inclines  to  the  other  side,  and  finally 
wearing  its  way  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  riv- 
er, begins  to  abrade  the  bank  there,  and  throw 
up  another  sand-beach. 

In  consequence  of  this  frequent  deviation 
from  a  straight  course,  many  long  but  narrow 
reaches  of  land,  as  they  are  called,  are  formed, 
sometimes  not  more  than  fifty  feet  wide  at  their 
base;  and  through  these  the  stream  frequently 
breaks  with  great  impetuosity,  when  the  river 
is  much  swollen  and  the  floods  come  down  from 
the  upper  country,  forcing  a  newchannel  through 
the  reach,  and  leaving  a  considerable  area  of 
land  isolated  on  the  side  of  the  bed  it  has  aban- 
doned and  left  dry  During  some  of  these  irre- 
sistible freshets,  the  maddened  river  has  some- 
times even  got  under  those  extensive  sand 
beaches,  and  after  lifting  them  up  as  high  as 
30  feet  above  the  general  level  of  the  land,  has 
borne  them  along,  and  finally  deposited  them  at 
a  distance  from  the  channel  of  the  river.  I 
have  seen  several  of  these  arenaceous  deposits 
four  or  five  hundred  yards  from  the  edge  of  the 
bank,  covering  the  soil  many  feet  deep,  and  ut- 
terly ruining  various  plantations.  In  some  in- 
stances the  flood  has  ploughed  up  the  whole  of 
the  soil  with  the  cotton  and  maize  growing 
upon  it  to  the  extent  of  forty  acres,  and  depos- 
ited it  in  a  mass  on  a  beach  lower  down.  At 
a  Monsieur  Barraque's,  an  ancient  French  set- 
tler, who  lives  about  140  miles  from  Little 
Rock,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Arkansas,  I  saw 
a  curious  instance  of  this  kind. 

The  few  settlers  on  the  bank  of  this  river  are 
all  cotton  planters,  and  experience  has  taught 
them  now  to  get  upon  the  highest  banks  beyond 
the  reach  of  inundation.  Whenever  we  saw  a 
number  of  bales  rolled  down  the  bank  we  al- 
ways stopped  to  take  them  in  as  part  of  the 
steamer's  freight  to  New  Orleans.  Upon  one 
occasion  the  number  of  bales  was  so  great  that 
we  were  detained  seven  hours,  and  hearing  that 
there  was  an  old  bed  in  the  vicinity  which  the 
river  had  formerly  abandoned  I  went  to  exam- 
ine it.  It  was  an  immense  chasm  in  the  land, 
on  the  left  bank,  about  300  yards  broad  and 
about  90  feet  deep,  extended  several  miles, 
bearing  the  appearance  of  a  reddish,  sandy  val- 
ley, containing  many  accumulations  of  old  sand- 
bars and  snags,  and  was  divided  from  the  pres- 
ent bed  of  the  river  by  a  high  ridge,  where  the 
young  wood  was  beginning  to  grow  very  thick- 
ly, on  a  surface  from  whence  all  the  timber  had 
evidently  been  swept  away  by  the  flood  when 
the  change  in  the  channel  took  place.  In  this 
chasm  I  saw  no  symptoms  of  animal  exist- 
ence, except  the  track  of  a  solitary  deer,  nor 
could  any  thing  be  imagined  more  savage  or 
lonely.  But  what  exceedingly  interested  me 
when  I  got  into  it,  were  the  curious  party-col- 
oured deposits  of  clay  and  sand,  which  had  been 
left  by  the  various  inundations  of  the  river  that 
had  taken  place  since  this  channel  was  aban- 
doned. These  inundations  could  almost  be 


enumerated  by  the  thin  strata  they  had  produ- 
ced. There  would  be  a  layer  of  red  clay,  then, 
one  of  white  sand,  then  again  a  mixture  of  both, 
and  occasionally  large  blotches  or  masses  of 
whitish  clay  enclosed  in  a  regular  deposit  of  red 
argillaceous  earth.  The  last  deposit  consisted 
of  about  an  inch  of  dull  red  argillaceous  mat- 
ter, most  probably,  for  reasons  which  will  be 
adduced,  brought  from  the  country  through 
which  the  river  Canadian  flows.  Appearances 
of  this  kind  are  often  met  with  in  the  indurated 
rocks,  where  they  can  only  be  accounted  for 
conjecturally.  On  this  extensive  continent, 
containing  rivers  whose  courses,  and  the  inci- 
dents produced  in  them,  can  be  traced  for  near 
three  thousand  miles,  there  is  some  encourage- 
ment to  look  for  the  cairses  of  similar  phenom- 
ena ;  for  every  one,  on  inspecting  them,  must 
feel  desirous  of  satisfying  himself  why  the  same 
river  at  one  time  deposits  red  clayey  matter,  at 
another  time  white  sand,  and  at  another  period 
mixed  earthy  matter,  repeating  the  order  of 
these  deposits  with  something  almost  amount- 
ing to  regularity. 

This  is  undoubtedly  owing  to  the  extraordi- 
nary character  of  the  River  Arkansas,  a  mighty 
flood,  which,  deriving  its  most  remote  sources 
from  the  melted  snows  of  peaks  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  from  10,000  to  15,000  feet  high,  and 
holding  its  course  amongst  the  mountain  chains 
for  at  least  200  miles,  pursues  its  way  near  2000 
miles  before  it  joins  the  Mississippi.  But  the 
sources  of  this  immense  stream  are  numerous, 
and  some  of  them  are  six  or  seven  hundred 
miles  apart  from  west  to  east.  Its  southern- 
most branch,  the  south  fork  of  the  Canadian, 
receives  streams  which  rise  near  the  34th  de- 
gree of  N.  lat. ;  parallel  to  this  are  its  other 
branches,  the  river  Canadian,  the  north  fork  of 
the  Canadian,  and  the  Nesuketonga  or  Grand 
Saline.  Its  most  northerly  source  is  from  the 
Rocky  Mountains  between  39°  and  40°  N.  lat., 
whilst  its  most  easterly  sources,  comprehend- 
ing the  Verdegris,  the  Neosho,  and  the  Illinois, 
rise  in  the  parallels  of  from  37°  to  38°  N.  lat., 
at  least  six  hundred  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
central  and  principal  sources  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  The  waters,  therefore,  that  take 
their  rise  at  points  separated  by  so  many  de*- 
grees  of  longitude,  have  to  pass  through  all  the 
zones  of  mineral  matter  which  they  intersect 
through  such  a  great  extent  of  surface  on  their 
way  to  the  Mississippi.  Nor  do  these  branches 
make  slight  impressions  upon  the  surface,  the 
southern  and  western  ones  being  all  of  them 
fine  rivers,  that  may  fairly  be  classed- with  the 
most  important  European  streams,  and  the 
eastern  ones  are  only  a  degree  less  important. 
I  have  been  informed  by  some  persons  who 
have  passed  across  the  heads  of  the  southern 
and  western  sources  of  this  noble  river,  that  in. 
some  places  it  has  varied  its  channel  so  much, 
as  to  have  abraded  the  whole  surface  for  sev- 
eral miles  in  width,  and  that  in  one  or  two  sit- 
uations the  floods  have  torn  up  and  desolated 
the  whole  country  for  a  space  equal  to  ten  miles 
wide.  The  southernmost  sources  flow  through 
an  ancient  deposit  of  red  argillaceous  matter 
for  several  hundred  miles,  which  gives  the  red, 
muddy  character  to  the  Canadian  and  its 
branches.  The  western  and  northern  sources 
bring  down  mineral  matter  of  various  kinds  and 


132 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


colours  ;  but  to  the  east  some  of  the  branches 
take  their  rise  in  the  petro-siliceous  country 
through  which  I  had  lately  passed,  and  the 
white  arenaceous  deposits  are  sufficiently  indic- 
ative of  their  eastern  origin. 

The  branches  which  have  been  referred  to 
being  of  unequal  length,  and  separated  by  great 
geographical  distances,  and  the  melting  of  the 
snow  and  the  rainy  seasons  being  governed  by 
differences  in  latitude  and  elevation,  they  are 
consequently  subject  to  increase  their  volume 
at  distinct  periods;  so  that  the  main  channel 
of  the  Arkansas  is  not  only  sometimes  flooded 
from  one  set  of  branches,  sometimes  from  an- 
other, but  is  occasionally  swollen  from  a  com- 
bination of  them  all ;  the  evidence  of  the  par- 
ticular state  of  the  river  at  any  one  period'being 
to  be  found  in  the  sedimentary  deposits  left  by 
the  inundations,  which  are  to  be  considered  as 
representing  the  mineral  character  of  the  dis- 
tricts through  which  the  waters  have  passed. 
A  close  observation  of  the  eccentric  movements 
of  floods  of  this  class  throws  a  great  deal  of 
light  upon  the  circumstances  which,  whether 
arising  from  partial  eddies  produced  by  a  change 
of  level  effected  in  periods  of  inundation,  or 
from  ordinary  mechanical  causes,  have  occa- 
sioned both  the  regularity  and  irregularity  of 
deposits  ;  and  tends  to  explain  how  blotches  of 
mineral  matter,  both  large  and  small,  are  found 
enclosed  in  masses  of  a  different  character,  as 
in  the  instances  where  the  whiter  matter  of  the 
eastern  branches  is  found  enclosed  in  the  ex- 
tensive layers  deposited  by  the  waters  of  the 
Canadian. 


CHHAPTER  XXXVII 

Approximative  Method  suggested  of  calculating  the  Age  of 
Fluviatile  Deposits — Brutal  Conduct  of  the  Passengers — 
The  Quapaw  Indians  a  Tribe  of  the  Osages— Monsieur 
Barraqu6,  his  Adventures— A  Young  Vagabond — Post  of 
Arkansas — Monsieur  Notr6be — The  River  encroaching 
upon  the  Country. 

THE  manner  in  which  fluviatile  deposits  are 
here  effected  upon  so  immense  a  scale,  may 
perhaps  suggest  the  origin  of  various  mineral 
phenomena  observed  in  the  older  indurated 
rocks,  especially  of  those  intermixtures  of  ma- 
rine and  fresh-water  strata  which  took  place  in 
remote  periods,  when  parts  of  the  surface  of  the 
earth  seem  to  have  been  exposed  to  repeated 
subsidences  and  elevations.  Although  we  have 
no  geographical  data  to  form  an  opinion  of  the 
causes  which  have  deposited  such  fresh-water 
strata,  yet  we  see  how  in  modern  times  they 
are  brought  into  place,  and  perhaps  can  avail 
ourselves  of  what  is  passing  before  our  eyes  to 
form  an  approximate  estimate  of  the  period  of 
time  required  for  a  deposit  of  a  particular  thick- 
ness. The  inundation  oj  June,  1833,  alone  de- 
posited a  layer  of  one  inch  of  red  clay  in  tfoe 
chasm  alluded  to,  which  can  be  traced  of  the 
same  uniform  character  for  several  miles,  and 
every  year  brings  at  least  one  inundation  ;  and 
although  a  great  portion  of  this  extensive  allu- 
vial country  has  been  deposited  under  the  sea, 
as  we  see  by  the  calcareous  beds  containing 
marine  fossils,  yet  the  whole  mineral  matter  ap- 
pears to  have  been  brought  down  from  the 
plains  above,  so  that  the  process  has  been  going 
on  for  an  immense  period  before  the  historic  pe- 


riod. The  surface  of  the  country,  too,  in  this 
vicinity  is  such  as  it  has  been  for  a  long  time 
since  it  was  left  by  the  ocean  ;  for  upon  some 
of  the  edges  of  the  ancient  banks  of  the  river 
are  Indian  mounds,  with  trees  growing  on  them, 
perhaps  five  hundred  years  old,  so  that  the 
mounds  are  at  least  as  ancient  as  the  existing 
vegetable  bodies.  Quantities  of  Indian  arrow- 
heads, too,  are  strewed  around  them,  made  of 
the  siliceous  mineral  of  the  Washita  hills,  and 
some  have  been  found  by  the  settlers  buried 
several  feet  beneath  the  surface,  facts  which 
show  that  this  alluvial  country,  which  was  pos- 
sessed by  some  bands  of  the  Qitapaws  when  the 
whites  first  began  to  occupy  it,  has  been  inhab- 
ited by  the  aborigines  at  a  very  distant  period. 

When  the  settlement  of  the  country  shall 
hereafter  bring  other  data  forward  connected 
with  these  considerations,  perhaps  it  will  not 
be  found  impossible  to  assign  reasonable  limits 
to  the  period  required  for  the  structure  of  this 
part  of  the  southern  country.  It  is  true  the  de- 
posits made  by  the  annual  inundations  are  nat- 
urally too  irregular  and  variable  to  afford  syste- 
matic data  for  a  chronological  computation  of 
the  origin  of  these  fluviatile  beds  ;  but  whenev- 
er a  careful  inquiry  of  this  kind  is  made,  it  will 
be  found  important  to  note  them  very  accurate- 
ly. Neither  would  it  be  impossible  to  calculate 
approximative^  the  amount  of  sedimentary  mat- 
ter  brought  down  annually  by  the  Arkansas,  or 
any  of  the  turbid  tributaries  of  the  Mississippi ; 
for  the  principal  floods  of  the  Arkansas  and 
Missouri,  caused  by  the  melting  of  the  snow  in. 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  although  they  are  irregu- 
larly swollen  during  the  winter  and  spring 
months  by  rain,  usually  take  place  in  June.  At 
all  these  times  they  hear  along  their  greatest 
quantity  of  solid  matter  towards  the  Mississip- 
pi, the  finest  particles  of  which  they  consign  to 
the  ocean,  where,  being  met  and  stopped,  they 
are  deposited  and  distributed  into  levels  which 
are  continually  extending  themselves  seaward, 
to  be  laid  dry  perhaps  at  some  future  day,  as  the 
alluvial  plains  which  now  form  the  surface  of 
the  country  -have  formerly  been. 

The  lowest  state  of  the  Arkansas  occurs 
from  July  to  November,  inclusive ;  during  a 
portion  of  this  time  it  is  often  too  shallow  to  be 
navigable  from  the  Mississippi  to  Little  Rock. 
In  this  state  of  the  River,  the  current  being 
sluggish,  the  water  quasi  stagnant,  and  the  sol- 
id matter  held  in  suspension  very  trifling,  al- 
though the  water  is  always  tinged  a  little  with 
it,  a  set  of  experiments  might  be  conducted, 
showing  the  mean  quantity  of  sedimentary  mat- 
ter brought  annually  down  during  the  rises  of 
the  river,  and  during  the  low-water  periods. 
Furnished  with  the  cubic  quantity  of  solid  mat- 
ter thus  obtained  in  a  given  period,  and  apply- 
ing it  as  a  divisor  to  the  probable  whole  quanti- 
ty of  fluviatile  deposit  in  the  entire  alluvial  area, 
a  chronological  period  might  be  approximative- 
ly  assigned  to  the  origin  of  these  rivers,  the 
commencement  of  these  deposits,  and  the  with- 
drawal of  the  ocean  from  this  part  of  the  coun- 
try. Perhaps  also  the  period  of  its  fitness  to 
receive  terrestrial  animals  might  thus  be  found 
to  accord  with  other  indications  of  the  existence 
of  an  aboriginal  race. 

On  reaching  the  steamer,  we  found  it  very 
clean,  and  but  few  passengers  on  board ;  I 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


133 


therefore  flattered  myself  with  the  enjoyment 
of  many  tranquil  moments,  in  which  I  could 
daily  bring  up  my  journal,  finish  my  sketches, 
and  contrive  a  few  comforts  for  a  voyage  which 
would  probably  last  ten  days ;  but  I  never  was 
more  engregiously  disappointed  at  any  period  of 
my  life.  The  passengers  were  some  low  per- 
sons on  their  way  from  Red  River  to  New  Or- 
leans on  business,  just  recovering  from  the  ef- 
fects of  malaria  and  calome^  and  who  gave 
themselves  unrestrainedly  up  to  such  beastly 
vulgar  habits,  even  when  at  table,  that  it  became 
impossible  to  remain  a  spectator  of  their  ster- 
corarious  proceedings.  Although  the  weather 
•was  often  cold  and  rainy,  Mr.  'f  ********  and 
myself  were  often  driven  on  deck  to  eat  our 
food,  to  avoid  the  disgusting  scenes  that  were 
going  on  around  the  fireside  in  the  cabin.  The 
captain  was  a  resolute  vigilant  man.  but  he 
cared  nothing  about  what  was  done  there,  leav- 
ing the  passengers  to  regulate  those  matters 
amongst  themselves.  The  arrival  of  night  was 
a  blessing  to  us  ;  if  we  could  not  sleep,  at  least 
our  eyes  and  ears  were  not  so  much  offended  ; 
for  the  brutes,  our  fellow- passengers,  gorged 
with  the  coarse  things  they  had  eaten,  could 
always  sleep,  like  hogs,  the  moment  they  laid 
themselves  down.  We  made  various  attempts 
to  put  matters  upon  a  better  footing,  but  could 
not  succeed,  these  animals  not  having  the 
slightest  idea  of  there  being  such  a  thing  as 
indecency.  In  the  morning  frwas  careful  to  be 
always  up  first,  get  alH^ner  to  myself  on  deck 
to  perform  my  ablutions  in,  and  wb^en  it  was 
very  cold  I  used  to  go  to  the  engineer's  room  to 
warm  myself,  who  was  a  clever  sort  of  man  in 
his  way. 

The  first  day  we  made  about  seventy-five 
miles,  and  the  next  morning  proceeded  twenty 
miles  to  a  Mrs.  Embree's,  a  widow,  who  culti- 
vated a  .cotton  plantation  ;  she  appeared  to  be 
an  active  respectable  person,  and  lived  with 
some  order  and  comfort  in  her  double  cabin. 
We  took  in  her  crop  of  cotton  for  the  New  Or- 
leans market,  as  well  as  that  of  her  son-in-law, 
Judge  Roane,  an  intelligent  person  who  em- 
barked with  us  to  go  a  short  distance  down  the 
river.  Nearly  opposite  to  the  widow's  is  an 
old  village  of  the  Quapaw  Indians,  which  had 
been  the  residence  of  a  Mons.  Vaugin,  a  French- 
man who  died  lately.  The  name  Quapaw,  as 
it  is  commonly  called,  is  pronounced,  as  a  half- 
breed  informed  me,  in  a  strong  guttural  manner, 
as  if  it  were  Gkwhawpaw.  From  a  vocabulary 
which  I  obtained  from  this  person,  the  language 
they  spoke  appears  to  be  a  dialect  of  the  Wfta- 
shash,  or  Osages,  from  whom  they  have  proba- 
bly separated,  as  these  last  have  their  hunting- 
grounds  only  about  250  miles  to  the  north-west. 
From  hence  we  proceeded  about  20  miles,  to 
the  plantation  of  a  Mons.  Barraque,  which  is 
very  well  chosen,  being  somewhat  higher  than 
the  line  of  inundation,  and  perfectly  level  for  a 
great  distance.  This  is  one  of  the  best  cotton 
plantations  on  the  river,  to  judge  from  the  size 
and  luxuriance  of  the  plants,  which  however 
were  not  equal  to  those  I  had  seen  on  the  Mex- 
ican side  of  Red  River.  If  the  company  in  the 
steamer  had  been  even  tolerable,  this  little  voy- 
age would  have  passed  off  agreeably,  for  these 
stoppages  gave  me  frequent  opportunities  of 
looking  at  the  country,  and  calling  to  see  the 


different  families,  all  of  whom,  by  their  affability, 
showed  how  happy  they  were  to  offer  civilities 
to  a  stranger  who  visited  their  country  for  the 
first  time.  The  French  families  were  delighted, 
too,  that  I  could  converse  with  them  in  their 
native  language,  and  were  in  raptures  when, 
they  heard  that  I  had  even  been  in  Paris.  This 
fact  of  itself  procured  me  the  most  decided  at- 
tentions. 

Mons.  Barraque's  family  were  all  French,  and 
occupied  a  house  containing  two  large  and  very 
comfortable  rooms,  neatly  and  sufficiently  fur- 
nished. On  entering  I  found  Madame  Barra- 
que, four  young  ladies,  and  some  of  their  friends, 
all  of  whom  received  me  with  a  charming  po- 
liteness peculiar  to  the  French,  and  engaged 
me  in  an  interesting  chat  with  them  for  an  hour. 
It  was  evident  that  they  had  ideas  and  opin- 
ions a  little  above  the  ordinary  run  of  the  old 
Creole  French  ;  and  upon  my  remarking  this, 
Mons.  Barraque  informed  me  that  he  had  only 
emigrated  from  France  upon  the  fall  of  his  mas- 
ter, Napoleon  ;  after  which  event,  being  uncer- 
tain of  his  advancement  in  the  army  upon  the 
restoration  of  the  Bourbon  family,  he  had  em- 
barked for  New  Orleans,  had  wandered  up  the 
Arkansas,  and  commenced  a  trade  with  some 
of  the  western  Indians  :  it  was  his  bad  fortune, 
however,  to  be  robbed  and  plundered  of  every- 
thing he  possessed,  and  in  this  state  he  made 
his  way  back  to  the  French  settlements  on  the 
Arkansas,  where  "  tout  le  monde  etoite  en- 
chante  de  le  revoir."  Frenchmen  make  a  point 
of  never  being  unhappy  long,  so  he  married  the 
daughter  of  one  of  the  old  settlers  at  whose 
house  he  staid  ;  and  after  a  while,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  his  father-in-law,  built  a  house,  and 
gradually  cleared  a  plantation.  He  is  now  a 
successful  cotton  planter,  and  being  himself  a 
native  of  the  lower  Pyrenees,  has  given  the 
name  of  "  New  Gascony"  to  the  district  he  re- 
sides in.  To  judge 'from  appearances,  Madame 
has  no  small  portion  of  the  Quapaw  blood  ia 
her,  which  is  not  an  uncommon  thing,  as  most 
of  the  Creole  French  who  lived  out  of  New  Or- 
leans connected  themselves  with  Indian  wom- 
en ;  her  mother  no  doubt  was  of  that  stock, 
but  she  is  a  very  good-looking  woman  notwith- 
standing her  Indian  blood,  has  French  manners, 
and  has  produced  a  fine  young  family. 

As  soon  as  the  signal  was  made  for  the  de- 
parture of  the  steamer,  I  went  to  the  house  to 
make  my  bow,  and  to  my  surprise  found  Mons. 
Barraque  also  ready  in  his  travelling  dress,  in- 
tending to  go  down  the  river  as  far  as  the  post 
of  Arkansas.  The  affectionate  manner  in  which 
he  seemed  to  live  with  his  family  was  very  en- 
gaging; at  the  words  "  Embrassez-moi,  mes 
enfants,"  all  ran  to  him,  and  they  took  a  gentle 
and  tender  leave  of  each  other,  including  Ma- 
dame. On  our  way  to  the  boat  I  said  to  him, 
"  Apres  tous  vos  malheurs,  Monsieur,  au  moins 
vous  avez  trouve  un  endroit  ou  vous  etes  heu- 
reux,"  when  to  my  extreme  surprise  he  an- 
swered me  in,  the  very  words  of  my  old  merry 
travelling  companion  Mons.  Nidelel,  when  I  was 
passing  through  Tennessee,  "Monsieur,  quand 
il  n'y  a  pas  de  choix,  tout  est  bon  !"  a  most  com- 
fortable maxim,  if  it  can  be  cordially  acted  up 
to,  and  in  the  practice  of  which  we  fastidious 
Englishmen  are  not  a  tenth  part  as  wise  as  our 
lively  neighbours. 


134 


TRAVELS  IN  AMEEICA. 


M.  Barraque  was  a  great  acquisition  to  Mr 
T********  and  myself  on  board  ;  he  was  full  of 
conversation,  his  adventures  and  opinions  were 
amusing,  and  we  found  him  a  very  intellige 
and  agreeable  fellow-passenger.  This  was  more 
than  could  be  said  of  the  others,  and  especially 
of  a  young  reprobate  of  the  name  of  Powers, 
apparently  not  more  than  twenty-one  years  old. 
This  youth  was  decently  dressed,  and  from  his 
language  was  evidently  from  New  England 
where  the  young  men  are  generally  well  brought 
up.  But  he  was  a  scape-grace  of  the  worse 
kind,  was  in  a  constant  state  of  intoxication 
•with  some  ardent  spirits  he  had  found  on  board 
of  the  boat,  and  behaved  in  the  most  ungoverna- 
ble and  ruffian-like  manner.  I  had  observed  him 
upon  several  occasions,  and  had  cautiously  ab- 
stained from  having  anything  to  do  with  him. 
Knowing  that  the  steward  of  the  boat  had  some 
claret  on  hoard  which  he  had  purchased  in  New 
Orleans,  I  desired  him  to  bring  me  a  bottle  of 
it,  that  I  might  offer  some  wine  toM.  Barraque 
This  drunken  puppy,  finding  that  I  did  not  offer 
it  to  him,  broke  out  in  the  most  insolent  man- 
ner to  me,  and  jumping  up  with  a  knife  in  his 
hand,  told  me,  before  all  the  passengers,  that  he 

"  had  a  good  mind  to  cut  my throat."    I 

never  was  more  tempted  to  knock  a  fellow's 
brains  out,  but  considering  his  extreme  youth, 
I  dissembled  my  feelings,  and  merely  told  him 
that  if  he  made  one  step  towards  me  I  would, 
after  that  speech,  put  him  to  death  on  the  spot. 
We  had  a  set  of  excellent  printed  rules  on  board, 
amongst  which  was  one  declaring  that  if  any 
passenger's  conduct  was  offensive  to  the  cap- 
tain or  to  the  other  passengers,  he  should  be 
immediately  put  on  shore,  and  I  determined  to 
require  of  the  captain  to  enforce  that  rule  in 
this  case.  The  other  passengers  made  no  re- 
mark upon  his  conduct,  except  M.  Barraque, 
who  went  on  deck  and  spoke  to  the  captain, 
and  told  him  what  he  thought  it  was  his  duty 
to  do.  Mr.  T* *******  and  myself  were  of 
opinion  that  he  would  be  more  influenced  by 
the  interference  of  a  planter  upon  whom  he  oc- 
casionally depended  for  freight,  than  by  my 
representations,  and  I  therefore  said  nothing, 
relying  upon  the  captain's  good  sense,  of  whose 
vigilance  in  matters  that  related  to  his  duty  we 
had  had  many  proofs.  In  the  evening  this 
young  brute  became  so  beastly  drunk,  that  he 
lay  down  in  a  berth  belonging  to  one  of  the  oth- 
er passengers  and  vomited  upon  his  clothes. 
The  captain,  on  hearing  of  this,  came  down  into 
the  cabin  to  speak  to  him,  but  he  was  too  drunk 
to  understand  what  was  said  to  him,  and  the 
affair  was  left  until  morning.  When  morning 
arrived  I  required  of  the  captain  an  immediate 
compliance  with  the  rule,  and  this  he  frankly 
admitted  he  was  bound  to  do,  but  said  there 
were  particular  circumstances,  known  only  to 
himself,  which  prevented  his  doing  it ;  he  con- 
cluded by  saying  that  he  would  take  such  pre- 
cautions as  would  prevent  my  being  exposed  to 
his  insolence  again.  Thus  situated,  I  had  no 
alternative  but  to  remain  on  board  and  see  if 
the  captain  would  restrain  him  by  his  authority, 
or  go  on  shore  myself  and  remain  in  the  wilder- 
ness perhaps  two  or  three  weeks  before  another 
steamer  should  offer.  This  being  the  most  in- 
convenient of  the  two,  I  determined  to  wait 
awhile  ;  and  in  fact  the  fellow,  in  consequence 


of  the  captain's  orders  to  give  him  nothing  tn 
drink,  was  quieter  after  this.  It  appeared  from 
what  the  engineer  told  me,  that  this  youth  was 
a  relative  of  one  of  the  owners  of  the  boat,  and 
was  going  to  the  gallows  so  fast,  that  he  had 
put  him  under  the  captain's  care  as  a  last  effort 
to  keep  him  from  immediate  destruction,  with 
injunctions  not  to  let  him  go  ashore  at  all. 

During  this  day  we  made  about  80  miles, 
stopping  at  two  or  three  plantations  to  take  in 
cotton,  and  mooring  the  steamer  as  soon  as  night 
set  in  ;  for  the  precarious  nature  of  the  naviga- 
tion renders  it  exceedingly  dangerous  and  al- 
most impossible  to  descend  the  Arkansas  when 
the  river  is  as  low  as  at  this  time,  except  by 
day-light.  Notwithstanding  the  greatest  atten- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  captain  we  frequently 
grounded,  and  we  often  had  to  stop  the  engine 
to  permit  the  boat  to  glide  gently  over  the  trees 
that  lay  beneath  the  water.  On  the  28th  we 
grounded  in  a  place  from  which  we  were  unable 
to  extricate  the  steamer  until  towards  evening, 
and  only  made  twenty  miles  during  the  day.  In 
the  morning,  the  steamer  having  to  take  in  some 
cotton,  and  finding  we  were  only  about  three 
miles  from  the  ancient  French  settlement  of 
"  Poste  d'Arkansas,"  Mr.  T********  and  my- 
self landed  and  walked  to  it  through  woods  fill- 
ed with  lofty  cotton-wood  (Populus  monilifera) 
trees,  with  an  undergrowth  in  many  places  of 
white  dog-wood  (Cornus  alba)  and  red  bud  (Cer- 
cis  Canadcnsis').  This  glace,  which  is  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  ArkaM^,  is  situated  on  the 
edge  of  arv extensive  prairie,  and  consists  of  a 
few  straggling  houses,  principally  occupied  by 
some  descendants  of  the  ancient  French  settlers, 
who  live  in  the  comfortless  way  that  the  same 
class  does  at  Carondelet.  The  great  man  of  the 
place  is  a  Monsieur  Notrebe,  a  French  emigrant, 
who  is  said  to  have  accumulated  a  considerable 
fortune  here.  His  house  appears  to  be  a  com- 
fortable one,  and  has  a  store  attachied  to  it, 
where  the  principal  business  of  this  part  of  the 
country  is  transacted.  Notrebe  preceded  M.  Bar- 
raque in  Arkansas,  and  also  married  a  Creole 
with  Indian  blood  in  her  veins.  Cultivating  cof- 
ton  himself,  advancing  money  to  other  planters 
to  carry  on  their  business  with,  upon  condition 
of  taking  their  crops  when  gathered  at  a  given 
price,  and  taking  skins  and  peltry  of  every  kind 
in  payment  of  goods  obtained  at  his  store — of 
which  whiskey  forms  no  small  item — he  has 
contrived  to  secure  a  monopoly  of  almost  all  the 
business  of  the  country,  and  after  a  vigorous 
struggle  has  compelled  all  his  competitors  to 
withdraw  from  the  trade.  In  addition  to  the 
tenements  inhabited  by  Frenchmen,  there  are 
two  miserable  taverns  kept  by  Americans,  where 
everything  is  upon  the  most  sordid  scale. 

Nature  assumes  a  somewhat  different  appear- 
ance at  this  place,  and  we  were  pleased  with  it 
on  our  arrival,  being  somewhat  relieved  from 
that  sense  of  weariness  with  which  an  unceasing 
contemplation  of  endless  forests  and  cane-brakes 
oppresses  the  mind.  The  banks  of  the  river, 
which  are  about  eighty  feet  high  here,  are  crum- 
bling down  with  a  rapidity  that  must,  more  or 
less,  attract  the  attention  of  the  settlers  and 
somewhat  alarm  them  ;  the  descending  floods 

dermining  them  on  one  hand,  whilst  the  banks, 
saturated  with  the  land-springs  and  superficial 
waters  tending  to  the  river,  become  at  length 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


135 


•too  heavy,  lose  their  adhesion,  and  are  precip 
tated  in  immense  masses  to  the  bottom.  The 
Arkansas  forms  a  beautiful  sweep  for  two  or 
three  miles,  where  the  settlement  is,  and  expo- 
ses a  deep  section  of  the  party-coloured  banks, 
in  which  I  observed  a  seam  of  calcareous  mat 
ter  towards  the  bottom  of  the  left  bank,  compo 
sed  of  broken-down  shells,  but  it  was  only  about 
three  inches  thick.  I  examined  the  neighbour- 
hood for  several  miles,  and  found  the  country  a 
dead  flat,  with  a  few  stunted  trees  growing  here 
and  there,  and  the  land  so  cut  up  by  broad  chan- 
nels or  gullies  made  by  the  rain,  that  even  with- 
in 300  yards  of  the  settlement  they  had  been 
obliged  to  construct  bridges  over  some  of  them. 
There  is  a  track  on  the  bank  of  the  river  which 
I  followed  some  distance,  until  it  stopped  at  a 
precipice  of  near  100  feet  high,  with  a  wide 
chasm,  on  my  left,  the  soh'd  contents  of  the 
•whole  having,  as  I  was  informed,  fallen  into  the 
•water  within  the  last  twelve  months.  All  this 
might  have  been  avoided  if  they  had,  in  the  first 
instance,  constructed  proper  passages  for  the 
atmospheric  waters  to  pass  off. 

We  remained  at  this  place  the  whole  day  ta- 
king in  M.  Notrebe's  bales  of  cotton,  many  of 
•which  we  were  obliged  to  leave  behind,  having 
no  room  for  them  :  indeed  the  bales  were  so 
piled  up  on  the  decks  and  paddle-boxes  of  the 
steamer,  that  she  looked  from  the  shore  like  an 
immense  collection  of  bales  of  cotton,  amongst 
which  some  pieces  of  machinery  had  been  stuck ; 
but  although,  to  my  inexperienced  eye,  she  was 
too  deeply  laden,  I  afterwards  found  that  she 
was  in  good  trim,  and  in  the  open  stream  made 
her  eight  and  ten  knots  an  hour.  We  were  de- 
tained until  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning  (Dec. 
30th),  when  we  started  for  Montgomery's,  the 
noted  gambler's,  at  the  mouth  of  White  River, 
distant  from  here  about  45  miles. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

The  Steamer  boarded  by  Swindlers — Pandemonium  afloat 
—Day  and  Night  Orgies— A  Mysterious  Lady— Printed 
Rules  to  decoy  Passengers— White  Rivev— Reach  the 
Mississippi — Arrive  at  Vicksburg  —  Mr.  Vick  and  his 
brother  Gentlemen — Worse  and  worse— Compliments  to 
the  Captain  of  a  Steamer  by  the  Gentry  of  Vicksburg— A 
View  of  the  Grand  Gulf— Reach  Natchez— A  happy  De- 
liverance of  the  Swindlers — Judge  Lynch  iu  the  State  of 
Mississippi— Arrive  at  New  Orleans. 

UPON  embarking  on  board. of  this  steamer  I 
•was  certainly  pleased  with  the  prospect  that 
presented  itself  of  enjoying  some  repose  and 
comfort  after  the  privations  and  fatigues  I  had 
endured  ;  but  never  was  traveller  more  mis- 
taken in  his  anticipations  !  The  vexatious  con- 
duct of  the  drunken  youth  had  made  a  serious 
innovation  upon  the  slight  degree  of  personal 
comfort  to  be  obtained  in  such  a  place,  but  I  had 
not  the  slightest  conception  that  that  incident 
would  be  entirely  thrown  into  the  shade  by 
others  a  thousand  times  more  offensive,  and 
that,  from  the  moment  of  our  departure  from  the 
post  of  Arkansas  until  our  arrival  at  New  Or- 
leans, I  was  destined  to  a  series  of  brutal  an- 
noyances that  extinguished  every  hope  of  re- 
pose, o>  a  chance  of  preserving  even  the  decen- 
cies of  existence. 

I  hart  been  told  at  the  post  of  Arkansas  that 
en  passengers  were  waiting  to  come  on  board, 


and  that  several  of  them  were  notorious  swin- 
dlers and  gamblers,  who,  whilst  in  Arkansas, 
lived  by  the  most  desperate  cheating  and  bully- 
ing, and  who  skulked  about  alternately  betwixt 
Little  Rock,  Natchez,  and  New  Orleans,  in 
search  of  any  plunder  that  violent  and  base 
means  could  bring  into  their  hands.  Some  of 
their  names  were  familiar  to  me,  having  heard 
them  frequently  spoken  of  at  Little  Rock  as 
scoundrels  of  the  worst  class.  From  the  mo- 
ment I  heard  they  were  coming  on  board  as 
passengers  I  predicted  to  Mr.  T********  that 
every  hope  of  comfort  was  at  an  end.  But  I 
had  also  been  told  that  two  American  officers,  a 
Captain  D*****  and  a  Lieut,  c****** — the  lat- 
ter a  gentleman  entrusted  with  the  construction 
of  the  military  road  in  Arkansas — were  also 
coming  on  board  ;  and  I  counted  upon  them  as 
persons  who  would  be,  by  the  force  of  educa- 
tion and  a  consciousness  of  what  was  due  to 
their  rank  as  officers,  on  the  side  of  decency  at 
least,  if  not  of  correct  manners  ;  and  if  those 
persons  had  passed  through  the  national  mili- 
tary academy  at  West  Point,  or  had  served  un- 
der the  respectable  chief*  of  the  Topographical 
Bureau  at  Washington,  I  should  not  have  been 
as  grievously  disappointed  as  it  was  my  fate  to 
be.  It  was  true  I  had  heard  that  these  officers 
had  been  passing  ten  days  with  these  scoundrels 
at  a  low  tavern  at  this  place,  in  the  unrestrain- 
ed indulgence  of  every  vicious  extravagance, 
night  and  day,  and  that  they  were  the  familiar 
intimates  of  these  notorious  swindlers.  Never- 
theless, believing  that  there  must  be  some  ex- 
aggeration in  this,  I  continued  to  look  forward 
with  satisfaction  to  having  them  for  fellow  pas- 
sengers, confident  that  they  would  be  our  allies 
against  any  gross  encroachments  of  the  others. 

Very  soon  after  I  had  retired  to  the  steamer 
at  sunset,  the  whole  clique  came  on  board,  and 
the  effect  produced  on  us  was  something  like 
that  which  would  be  made  upon  passengers  in 
a  peaceful  vessel  forcibly  boarded  by  pirates  of 
the  most  desperate  character,  whose  manners 
seemed  to  be  what  they  aspired  to  imitate. 
Rushing  into  the  cabin,  all  but  red-hot  with 
whiskey,  they  crowded  round  the  stove  and  ex- 
cluded all  the  old  passengers  from  it  as  much  as 
if  they  had  no  right  whatever  to  be  in  the  cabin. 
Putting  on  a  determined  bullying  air  of  doing 
what  they  pleased  because  they  were  the  majori- 
ty, and  armed  with  pistols  and  knives,  expressly 
made  for  cutting  and  stabbing,  eight  inches  long 
and  an  inch  and  a  half  broad ;  noise,  confusion, 
spitting,  smoking,  cursing  and  swearing,  drawn 
from  the  most  remorseless  pages  of  blasphemy, 
commenced  and  prevailed  from  the  moment  of 
this  evasion.  I  was  satisfied  at  once  that  all 
resistance  would  be  vain,  and  that  even  remon- 
strance might  lead  to  murder ;  for  a  sickly  old 
man  in  the  cabin  happening  to  say  to  one  of 
them  that  there  was  so  much  smoke  he  could 
tiardly  breathe,  the  fellow  immediately  said,  "  If 
any  man  tells  me  he  don't  like  my  smoking  I'll 
put  a  knife  into  him." 

As  soon  as  supper  was  over  they  all  went  to 
gamblimg,  during  which,  at  every  turn  of  the 
cards,  imprecations  and  blasphemies  of  the 
most  revolting  kind  were  loudly  vociferated. 
Observing  them  from  a  distance  where  Mr. 


Colonel  Abert. 


136 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


T********  and  myself  were  seated,  I  perceived 
that  one.  of  them  was  the  wretched  looking  fellow 
I  had  seen  at  Hignite's,  on  my  way  to  Texas, 
who  went  by  the  name  of  Smith,  and  that  his 
keeper  Mr.  Tunstall  was  with  him.  The  most 
blasphemous  fellows  o-'nongst  them  were  two 
men  of  the  names  of  Ki-otor  and  Wilson.  This 
Rector  at  that  time  held  a  commission  under  the 
national  government  as  Marshal  for  the  terri- 
tory of  Arkansas,  was  a  man  of  mean  stature, 
low  and  sottish  in  his  manners,  and  as  corrupt 
and  reckless  as  it  was  possible  for  human  being 
to  be.  The  man  named  Wilson  was  a  suttler 
from  cantonment  Gibson,  a  military  post  about 
250  miles  up  the  Arkansas  :  he  had  a  remark- 
able depression  at  the  bottom  of  his  forehead  ; 
and  from  this  sinus  his  nose  rising  with  a  sud- 
den spring,  gave  a  fural  expression  to  his  face 
that  exactly  resembled  the  portrait  of  the  wick- 
ed apprentice  in  Hogarth.  The  rubric  on  his 
countenance  too  was  a  faithful  register  of  the 
numerous  journeys  the  whiskey  bottle  had  made 
to  his  proboscis. 

If  the  Marshal,  Mr.  Rector,  was  the  most  con- 
stant blasphemer,  the  suttler  was  the  most  em- 
phatic one.  It  was  Mr.  Rector's  invariable 
custom,  when  the  cards  did  not  turn  up  to  please 
him,  to  express  a  fervent  wish  that  "  his  soul 

might  he  sent  to ,"  whilst  Mr.  Wilson  never 

neglected  a  favourable  opportunity  of  hoping 
that  his  own  might  be  kept  there  to  a  thousand 
eternities.  This  was  the  language  we  were 
compelled  to  listen  to  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
without  remission,  whenever  we  were  in  the 
cabin.  In  the  morning,  as  soon  as  day  broke, 
they  began  by  drinking  brandy  and  gin  with 
sugar  in  it,  without  any  water,  and  after  break- 
fast they  immediately  went  to  gambling,  smo- 
king, spitting,  blaspheming,  and  drinking  for  the 
rest  of  the  day.  Dinner  interrupted  their  orgies 
for  a  while,  but  only  for  a  short  time,  and  after 
supper  these  wretches,  maddened  with  the  in- 
flaming and  impure  liquors  they  swallowed,  fill- 
ed the  cabin  with  an  infernal  vociferation  of 
curses,  and  a  perfect  pestilence  of  smoking  and 
spitting  in  every  direction.  Lieut.  C******  oc- 
casionally exchanged  a  few  words  with  me,  and 
appeared  to  be  restrained  by  my  presence;  he 
never  sat  down  to  play,  but  was  upon  the  most 
intimate  terms  with  the  worst  of  these  black- 
guards, and  drank  very  freely  with  them.  Capt. 
D*****,  with  whom  I  never  exchanged  a  word, 
was  a  gentlemanly-looking  youth,  and  was  not 
vulgar  and  coarse  like  the  others,  but  I  never 
saw  a  young  man  so  infatuated  with  play,  be- 
ing always  the  first  to  go  to  the  gambling  table 
and  the  last  to  quit  it.  Such  was  his  passion 
for  gambling  that  it  overcame  everything  like 
decent  respect  for  the  feelings  and  comfort  of 
the  other  passengers;  and  one  night,  after  the 
others  had  become  too  drunk  and  tired  to  sit  up, 
I  was  kept  awake  by  his  sitting  up  with  Rector 
and  continuing  to  play  at  high,  low,  jack,  and 
the  game,  until  a  very  late  hour  in  the  morning. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  most  remarkable  char- 
acter amongst  them  was  Smith,  the  New  Eng- 
lander,  with  his  pale  dough  face,  every  feature 
of  which  was  a  proclamation  of  bully,  sneak, 
and  scoundrel.  I  never  before  saw  in  the 
countenance  of  any  man  such  incontrovertible 
evidences  of  a  fallen  nature.  It  was  this  fel- 
low that  had  charge  of  the  materials  for  gam- 


bling, and  who  spread  the  faro  table  out  the  first 
evening  of  their  coming  on  board,  in  hopes  to 
lure  some  of  the  passengers  ;  none  of  whom,. 
however,  approached  table  except  the  drunken 
youth  who  had  behaved  so  ill  on  a  previous  oc- 
casion, and  they  never  asked  him  to  play,  prob- 
ably knowing  that  he  had  no  money. 

Having  found  no  birds  to  pluck  on  board,  they 
were  compelled  to  play  against  each  other,  al- 
ways quarrelling  in  the  most  violent  manner, 
and  using  the  most  atrocious  menaces  :  it  was 
always  known  when  these  quarrels  were  not 
made  up,  by  the  parties  appearing  the  next  time 
at  the  gambling-table  with  their  Bowie-knives 
near  them.  In  various  travels  in  almost  every 
part  of  the  world  I  never  saw  such  a  collection 
of  unblushing,  low,  degraded  scoundrels,  and  I 
became  at  length  so  unhappy  as  often  to  think1 
of  being  set  on  shore  and  taking  a  chance  fate 
in  the  wild  cane-brakes,  rather  than  have  my 
senses  continually  polluted  with  scenes  that  had 
every  appearance  of  lasting  until  the  end  of  the 
voyage  :  but  for  the  comfort  I  derived  from  the 
society  of  Mr.  T********,  who  was  as  misera- 
ble as  myself,  and  who  relied  altogether  upon/ 
me  to  set  a  good  countenance  upon  the  whole 
matter,  I  certainly  should  have  executed  my  in- 
tention. 

Above  the  cabin  where  these  scenes  were 
enacted  was  a  smaller  one  called  the  Ladies' 
Cabin,  and  when  I  found  what  sort  of  a  set  we 
had  got,  I  applied  to  the  steward  to  give  Mr.. 
T********  and  myself  berths  there  ;  but  he  in- 
formed us  this  could  not  be  done,  because  Capt. 
D*****'s  sjster  was  there,  having  come  on  board, 
with  him  at  the  post.  She  might  be  his  sister 
for  aught  I  ever  learnt  to  the  contrary,  but. 
whatever  she  was  she  kept  very  close,  for  she 
never  appeared  either  below  or  upon  deck.  My, 
remonstrances  with  the  captain  produced  no 
effect  whatever;  when  I  talked  to  him  about 
iis  printed  rules,  he  plainly  told  me  that  he  did 
not  pretend  to  execute  them  ;  that  what  I  com- 
plained of  were  the  customs  and  manners  of  the 
country,  and  that  if  he  pretended  to  enforce  they 
rules  he  should  never  get  another  passenger, 
adding,  that  one  of  the  rules  left  it  to  a  majori- 
ty of  the  passengers  to  form  their  own  by-laws 
"or  the  government  of  the  cabin. 

On  recurring  to  them  I  found  it  was  so,  the 
erms  being  that  by-laws  were  to  be  so  made, 
'  provided  they  were  in  conformity  with  the 
aolice  of  the  boat."  As  there  was  no  police  ia. 
;he  boat,  it  was  evident  the  printed  rules  were 
fiothing  but  a  bait  to  catch  passengers  with,  and, 
[  never  spoke  to  him  on  the  subject  again.  I 
lad  heard  many  stories  of  gangs  of  scoundrels - 
who  wandered  abou^  from  New  Orleans  to- 
Matchez,  Vicksburg,  and  Little  Rock,  with  no 
laggage  but  broad,  sharp  butcher  knives,  loaded 
pistols,  and  gambling  apparatus,  and  I  was  now 
ompelled  to  witness  the  proceedings  of  such 
ruffians.  These  would  have  been  less  intolera- 
ble if  the  two  U.  S.  officers  had  kept  aloof  from 
these  fellows  and  formed  a  little  society  with, 
us,  as  I  reasonably  expected  they  would  do 
when  I  first  heard  they  were  coming  on  hoard  ; 
nit  Capt.  D*****  never  once  offered  either  Mr. 
T********  or  myself  the  least  civility,  or  ex- 
changed a  word  with  us ;  and  although  that 
was  not  the  case  with  Lieut.  C******,  yet  an. 
ncident  took  place  very  early  in  the  voyage 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


137 


which  convinced  me  we  had  nothing  to  expect 
from  him.  Wilson,  the  man  with  the  nose, 
was  standing  with  his  hack  to  the  stove  before 
hreakfast,  unrestrainedly  indulging  in  incohe- 
rent curses  ahout  some  one  he  had  quarrelled 
with,  when  Mr.  C******  in  the  most  amiable 
manner  put  his  hand  inside  of  the  ruffian's 
waistcoat,  drew  forth  his  stabbing  knife,  un- 
sbeathed  it,  felt  the  edge  as  if  with  a  connois- 
seur's ringer  and  thumb,  and  was  lavish  in  its 
praise.  Such  were  the  unvarying  scenes  which 
were  re-enacted  for  the  many  days  we  were 
shut  up  in  the  steamer  with  these  villains,  and 
with  this  statement  of  them  I  return  to  the 
topographical  details  of  the  voyage. 

We  had  a  favourable  run  down  the  river  the 
day  of  our  departure  from  the  post  of  Arkansas, 
and  in  the  afternoon  turned  into  what  is  called 
the  Cut-off,  a  natural  passage  or  canal  which 
connects  the  Arkansas  with  the  waters  of  White 
River.  It  'is  more  convenient  tp  take  this  Cut- 
off to  reach  the  Mississippi,  as  it  is  a  clear  ca- 
nal-like navigation  about  250  feet  broad,  with- 
out any  snags  or  sawyers.  To  the  right  lies  a 
considerable  island  cut  off  from  the  main  land, 
upon  which  we  saw  two  miserable  cabins,  on 
each  side  of  which  lofty  canes  about  25  feet 
high  were  growing.  There  was  no  current  in 
this  Cut-off,  the  Arkansas  rushing  past  it  at  the 
south  end,  and  White  River  at  the  north  end, 
damming  up  its  waters  as  if  it  were  a  millpond  ; 
we  therefore  soon  got  into  the  current  of  White 
River  itself,  which  is  here  a  powerful  stream, 
and  at  night,  to  our  great  joy,  we  reached  the 
Mississippi  River,  and  brought  up  for  a  short 
time  at  Montgomery's,  a  notorious  place. 

We  were  now  at  length  on  a  great  fluviatile 
highway  where  other  steamers  were  occasion- 
ally to  be  met,  and  Mr.  T********  and  myself 
comforted  ourselves  with  the  belief  that  we 
should  have  many  opportunities  of  abandoning 
the  wretches  we  were  compelled  to  live  with 
and  exchange  their  detested  society  for  any 
other,  since  none  could  be  more  irksome  to  us. 
The  Mississippi  at  this  point  appeared  to  be 
about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  wide,  was  a  fine 
open  stream  without  sandbars  and  snags,  along 
which  we  could  freely  proceed  all  night  without 
danger:  disgusted  as  we  were,  we  rejoiced  at 
our  escape  from  the  contracted  banks  and  end- 
less forests  of  the  Arkansas,  the  very  air  of 
which  seemed  to  breathe  of  corruption.  I  rose 
early  in  the  morning  and  hastened  on  deck  to 
look  at  the  shores  ;  we  had  the  state  of  Missis- 
sippi on  our  left,  and  the  territory  of  Arkansas 
on  our  right. 

The  water  of  the  river  was  of  a  grey,  muddy 
colour,  not  red  like  that  of  the  Arkansas,  but 
the  banks,  like  those  of  this  last  stream,  were 
low,  and  were  constantly  crumbling  and  wear- 
ing away,  carrying  along  with  them  trees  and 
masses  of  cane-brake.  Everything  which  de- 
pended upon  the  action  of  the  river  was  the 
same  as  in  the  one  we  had  just  left,  although 
upon  a  larger  scale  ;  there  was  the  same  ser- 
pentine course,  the  same  reaches,  but  more  ex- 
tensive, and  the  same  sand-bars.  In  the  course 
of  the  day  we  passed  Columbia,  the  county- 
town  of  the  county  of  Chicot  in  Arkansas,  said 
to  he  the  most  fertile  part  of  the  whole  territory. 
After  passing  a  most  horrible  night,  kept  awake 
by  the  tobacco  and  imprecations  of  the  drunken 
S 


f amblers,  we  arrived  early  in  the  morning  of 
anuary  1st  at  Vicksburg,  and  greatly  disap- 
pointed wpre  we  not  to  find  any  steamer  there 
bound  to  New  Orleans.  Here  we  remained 
several  hours,  and  thought  of  going  to  a  favern 
to  wait  for  a  steamer,  for  which  purpose  we  en- 
tered the  town  with  the  intention  of  looking  out 
for  lodgings. 

Vicksburg  is  a  modern  settlement  situated  on 
the  side  of  a  hill  very  much  abraded  and  cut  up 
into  gullies  by  the  rains.  The  land  rises  about 
200  feet  above  the  Mississippi,  but  sinks  again 
very  soon  to  the  east,  forming  a  sort  of  ridge 
which  appears  at  intervals  as  far  as  Baton 
Rouge.  On  returning  to  the  steamer  we  were 
informed  that  eight  or  ten  gentlemen,  some  of 
whom  were  planters  of  great  respectability,  and* 
amongst  the  rest,  a  Mt.  Vick,  after  whom  the 
place  was  called,  were  coming  on  board  with  the 
intention  of  going  to  New  Orleans.  This  de- 
termined us  to  continue  on  with  the  boat,  con- 
ceiving that  we  should  be  too  many  for  the  ruf- 
fians in  the  cabin,  and  that  the  captain — who 
was  anxious  to  keep  up  a  good  understanding 
with  the  planters — would  now  interfere  to  keep- 
some  order  there.  But  supper  being  over,  and 
the  faro-table  spread  as  usual,  what  was  my 
horror  and  astonishment  at  seeing  these  Missis- 
sippi gentlemen,  with  the  respectable  Mr.  Vick, 
sitting  down  to  faro  with  these  swindlers,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  very  short  time  gambling, 
drinking,  smoking,  and  blaspheming,  just  as  des- 
perately as  the  worst  of  them  !  The  cabin  be- 
came so  full  of  tobacco  smoke  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  me  to  remain  in  it,  so  wrapping  my- 
self up  as  warm  as  T  could,  I  retreated  to  the 
deck  to  pass  the  night,  Mr.  T********  soon  fol- 
lowing me  ;  there  we  met  the  captain,  and  told" 
him  we  could  not  endure  this  any  longer,  and 
were  desirous  of  being  put  on  shore  at  the  very 
first  settlement  we  should  reach  by  daylight. 
He  said  it  would  be  best  for  us  to  go  on  shore 
at  Natchez,  and  that  he  really  pitied  us,  but  that 
he  could  not  disoblige  these  planters,  for  that  if 
he  was  to  interfere  with  their  amusements,  they 
would  never  ship  any  freight  with  him  ;  adding 
that  the  competition  amongst  the  steamers  was 
so  great,  that  every  man  was  obliged  to  look  out 
for  his  own  interests  :  as  a  proof  that  it  was  ne- 
cessary for  him  to  act  with  some  policy,  he  told 
us  that  a  captain  of  his  acquaintance  having.  • 
once  put  a  disorderly  fellow  belonging  to  Vicks- 
burg on  shore,  had,  when  he  stopped  there  on: 
his  return,  been  boarded  by  fifteen  persons,  arm- 
ed with  knives  and  pistols,  who  proceeded  to 
spit  in  his  face,  kick  him,  and  treat  him  in  the 
most  savage  manner.  Some  of  these  fifteen 
persons,  he  said,  he  thought  were  now  on  board- 
This  I  could  readily  believe,  for  nothing  could 
be  more  reckless  or  brutal  than  their  conduct 
and  conversation.  They  had  escaped  the  re- 
straints which  society  imposed  in  the  place  they 
nhabited — if  any  such  existed — and  seemed  de- 
termined to  exhaust  all  the  extravagances  that 
brutality  and  profanity  are  capable  of.  I  shall 
never  forget  these  specimens  of  gentlemen  be^ 
longing  to  the  State  of  Mississippi. 

During  the  day,  we  passed  Rockport  or  the 
Grand  Gulf,  where  the  Mississippi  pursues  a 
broad  straight  channel  for  several  miles,  the  riv- 
er having  lost  its  serpentine  character,  and  the 
shore  assuming  an  unusual  height,  with  pictu* 


138 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


-resque  hills  here  and  there.  Generally  speaking 
there  is  an  oppressive  monotony  in  the  appear- 
ance of  the  shores  of  this  fine  river  to  the  south, 
but  the  view  here  was  sufficiently  pleasing  to  in- 
duce cne  to  sketch  it.  The  sand  has  indurated 
and  formed  a  rock,  which  in  this  universal  al- 
luvial country  furnishes  an  excuse  for  the  name 
of  the  pretty  little  settlement  of  Rockport.  Rod- 
ney, farther  to  the  south,  is  built  on  a  similar 
ridge,  but  the  inhabitants  have  abandoned  the 
upland  for  the  low  ground,  finding  this  last  less 
unhealthy. 

It  was  after  midnight  when  we  reached  Natch- 
ez, where  we  had  determined  to  land,  and  where 
•we  did  not  remain  a  long  time,  for  we  had  hut 
a  short  time  to  make  up  our  minds.  The  prin- 
cipal or  upper  town,  where  the  planters  reside, 
is  some  distance  from  the  shore,  and  we  could 
not  reach  it  that  night  without  leaving  our  lug- 
gage at  the  low  town  by  the  water's  edge  :  but 
the  engineer  of  the  steamer,  in  whom  I  placed 
some  confidence,  had  assured  me  that  this  low 
town  was  a  notorious  rendezvous  for  the  very 
worst  desperadoes  in  the  country,  more  infa- 
mous— if  possible — even  than  the  party  we  had 
on  board,  and  that  if  we  left  anything  there  we 
should  never  see  it  again ;  whilst  if  we  staid 
there  all  night  we  should  expose  ourselves  both 
to  robbery  and  murder,  many  persons  having 
been  traced  to  that  place,  without  ever  having 
been  further  heard  of.  Whilst  I  was  pondering 
upon  this  obvious  difficulty  I  saw  all  the  fellows 
"we  took  in  at  the  post  of  Arkansas  come  upon 
deck  as  if  they  were  about  to  leave  the  steamer, 
and  being  informed  by  the  steward  that  the 
•whole  yarty,  tutti  quanti,  officers,  mysterious 
lady  and  all,  were  going  no  farther,  I  determin- 
ed to  remain.  Here  then  we  had  the  satisfac- 
tion to  see  these  degraded  wretches  leave  the 
boat,  and  a  short  time  after  to  know  that  we 
•were  on  the  bosom  of  the  Mississippi  without 
them.*  The  captain,  too,  seemed  to  be  glad  to 


*  A  few  months  afterwards  the  outrageous  conduct  of 
this  gang  of  lawless  men  drew  upon  some  of  them  a  sum- 
mary and  tragical  fate  ;  and  the  incident  is  so  highly  char- 
acteristic of  the  manners  of  the  part  of  the  country  it  con- 
cerns, that  it  deserves  to  be  related. 

Encouraged  by  the  acquaintances  they  had  formed  on 
board  of  the  steamer,  some  of  these  wretches  removed  to 
Vicksburg  and  established  gambling  tables  at  various  low 
taverns,  to  which  they  decoyed  the  young  men  of  tho  place, 
and  having  plundered  and  debauched  them,  they  at  length 
became  as  depraved  as  themselves,  and  their  constant  asso- 
ciates. Emboldened  by  their  numbers,  and  by  the  impunity 
•which  their  desperate  character. appeared  to  invest  them 
•with,  they  threw  off  all  restraint,  and  by  their  constant 
drunkenness,  and  their  crimes,  rendered  themselves  objects 
of  terror  to  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  ;  occupying  the  streets 
in  the  day-time,  armed  with  deadly  weapons,  and  insulting 
every  one  that  was  obnoxious  to  them.  This  anarchy  be- 
coming' intolerable,  the  citizens  were  driven  to  combine 
against  them,  antl  a  crisis  was  soon  reached  upon  the  occa- 
sion of  a  public  dinner,  at  which  one  of  these  men  having 
contrived  to  get  admittance,  interrupted  the  festivity,  and 
struck  an  inhabitant  who  endeavoured  to  keep  him  in  order. 
Upon  this  an  uproar  took  place,  which  ended  by  his  being 
turned  into  the  street.  This  fellow,  whose  name  was  Cab- 
ler,  now  hastened  to  his  confederates,  and  arming  himself, 
returned  with  some  of  them  to  the  public  square,  proclaim- 
ing aloud  his  intention  to  put'lo  death  the  individuals  who 
had  been  most  forward  in  expelling  him.  At  the  square, 
however,  he  was  met  by  the  company  he  had  insulted,  and 
a  small  corps  of  volunteers,  who  hud  been  dining  with  them 
— was  seized,  disarmed,  and  immediately  taken  to  the  woods. 
Tying  him  to  a  tree,  they  first  proceeded  to  Lynch  him  in  a 
severe  manner,  then  tarred  and.  feathered  him,  and  peremp- 
torily ordered  him  to  leave  the  place. 

The  citizens  being  now  roused,  held  a  general  meeting, 
.  and  there  passed  a  resolution  that  all  these  gamblers  should 
leave  the  town  in  twenty-fi  ur  hours,  and  had  it  placarded 
,  on  the  walls  On  the  morning  succeeding  to  the  stipulated 


be  rid  of  them,  and  to  have  an  opportunity  of 
being  civil  to  me,  for  he  voluntarily  offered  to 

time,  the  inhabitants  in  great  numbers,  accompanied  by  the 
volunteers,  went  to  the  haunts  of  the  gamblers,  and  deputed 
a  part  of  their  number  to  seize  all  the  faro  and  rouge  et  noir 
tables  ;  but  on  reaching  a  house  occupied  by  a  very  desper- 
ate fellow  of  the  gang,  named  North,  they  found  it  garrison- 
ed by  several  of  the  most  obnoxious  of  these  scoundrels,  all 
of  them  completely  armed.  The  posse  having  surrounded 
the  house  and  broken  open  a  back  door,  a  volley  was  fired 
from  within,  by  which  a  Dr.  Hugh  S.  Bodley,  one  of  the 
most  respected  inhabitants  of  the  place,  was  killed  on  the 
spot.  The  fire  was  instantly  returned,  and  one  of  the  gang 
wounded  ;  but  the  conflict  was  of  short  duration,  for  the  as- 
sailants, enraged  at  the  death  of  one  whom  they  valued  so 
much,  stormed  the  place,  and  captured  all  who  had  not  es- 
caped :  there  were  five  in  number,  amongst  whom  was 
Smith,  the  pale  dough- faced  New  Englander,  who  has  been 
already  alluded  to  as  one  of  the  gamblers  on  board  the 
steamer. 

Shriving  time  was  not  allowed  to  these  miserable  wretch- 
es ;  a  gallows  was  instantly  erected,  and  the  extraordinary 
spectacle  exhibited  of  the  whole  population  of  a  town,  head"- 
ed  by  the  leading  inhabitants,  many  of  whom  were  magis- 
trates, conducting  five  men  to  execution — one  of  whom  was 
desperately  wounded— before  any  preliminary  step  whatever 
had  been  taken  to  bring  them  to  a  trial  by  the  laws  of  their 
country.  Such  are  the  excesses  to  which  the  people  of  these 
climes  abandon  themselves  when  their  passions  are  roused 
— never  stopping  to  consider  consequences,  but  madly  sacri- 
ficing human  life,  and  incurring  the  gravest  responsibilities, 
upon  the  impulse  of  the  moment ! 

The  person  from  whom  I  had  these  particulars — which 
were  to  a  great  extent  confirmed  by  the  public  journals  at 
the  time— told  me  that  the  scene  which  preceded  the  death 
of  these  men  baffled  all  description.  A  tumultuous  mob, 
showing  a  savage  impatience  to  hurry  on  t  he  execution,  filled 
the  air  with  execrations ;  whilst  the  captured  and  crest- 
fallen gamblers,  preceded  by  a  drunken  black  fiddler,  were 
reluctantly  dragged  to  the  fatal  tree  by  the  volunteers  and 
citizens.  The  names  of  these  doomed  wretches  were  North, 
Hallums,  Smith,  Dutch  Bill,  and  M'Call ;  some  of  whom 
were  dogged  and  malignant  to  the  last :  Smith,  however, 
was  thoroughly  terror-stricken  ;  he  wept,  he  implored,  he 
cried  aloud  for  mercy,  and  evinced  the  most  abject  despair : 
vain  were  these  appeals,  for  the  instant  the  gallows  was 
ready,  they  were  all  launched  into  eternity,  including  the 
wounded  man.  It  was  the  next  morning  before  their  bodies 
were  cut  down  and  buried  together  in  a  ditch. 

This  transaction  passed  over  without  any  subsequent  in- 
quiry by  the  constituted  authorities.  The  murdered  men 
were  known  to  be  scoundrels  of  the  worst  kind,  and  received 
little  or  no  sympathy :  out  of  the  State  of  Mississippi  the 
act  was  far  from  being  approved  of,  although  it  was  ho)>ed 
it  might  check  the  profligate  career  of  a  set  of  individuals 
whose  vicious  lives  were  a  perpetual  defiance  to  society. 
But  in  the  State  of  Mississippi,  public  opinion  unanimously 
sustained  the  conduct  of  the  citizens  of  Vicksburg,  who 
themselves  seem— after  the  transaction,  and  when  their 
blood  must  have  been  cool— to  have  been  quito  unconscious 
of  having  done  anything  that  was  inconsistent  either  with 
the  dictates  of  humanity  or  of  justice  ;  for,  in  an  elaborate 
justification  of  their  ferocious  conduct,  which  was  subse- 
quently drawn  up  in  that  town  and  published,  there  is  the 
following  extraordinary  passage,  which  not  Only  invites  the 
other  towns  of  the  State  to  pursue  the  same  barbarous  sys- 
tem, but  also  admits  that  the  most  respectable  inhabitants 
of  Vicksburg  participated  in  the  proceedings  of  that  mem- 
orable day.  and  were  far  from  being  dissatisfied  with  what 
they  had  done  1— 

"  Society  may  be  compared  to  the  elements,  which,  al 
though  '  order  is  their  first  law,'  can  sometimes  be  purified 
only  by  a  storm.  Whatever,  therefore,  sickly  sensibility  or 
mawkish  philanthropy  may  say  against  the  course  pursued 
by  us,  we  hope  that  our  citizens  will  not  relax  the  code  of 
punishment  which  they  have  enacted  against  this  infamous, 
unprincipled,  and  baleful  class  of  society  ;  and  we  invite 
Natchez,  Jackson,  Columbus,  Warrenton,  and  all  our  sister 
ns  throughout  the  State,  in  the  name  of  our  insulted 
laws,  of  offended  virtue,  and  of  slaughtered  innocence,  to 
aid  us  in  exterminating  this  deep-rooted  vice  from  our  land. 
The  revolution  has  been  conducted  here  by  the  most  respect- 
able citizens,  heads  of  families,  members  of  all  classes,  pro- 
fessions, and  pursuits.  None  have  been  heard  to  utter  a 
syllable  of  censure  against  either  the  act  or  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  performed ;  and  so  far  as  we  know,  public 
opinion,  both  in  town  and  country,  is  decidedly  in  favour 
of  the  course  pursued.  We  have  never  known  tho  public 
so  unanimous  on  any  subject." 

It  will  scarcely  be  credited  that  on  the  morning  prece- 
ding this  wholesale  murder,  a  still  more  ferocious  scone  waf 

acting  about  forty  miles  from  the  same  place,  of  which 
the  particulars  appeared  in  the  newspapers  of  the  day 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


139 


give  Mr.  T 

ladies'  cabin,  now  vacant 

embraced,  and  from  that  moment  never  entered 

the  lower  cabin  but  to  snatch  a  hasty  meal 

The  Vicksburg  gentlemen,  seeing  we  avoided 

their  society,  behaved  as  ill  as  they  could  when 


and  myself  berths  in  the  I  exhibited  in  the  Delta  of  that  mighty  river.  This 
cant,  an  offer  we  joyfully  '  immense  fluviatile  deposit  may  be  described  as 
an  irregular  triangle,  formed  hy  the  line  of  the 
Atchafalaya  River  from  the  point  where  it  leaves 
Red  River  to  where  it  intersects  the  29th  de- 
gree  of  N.  lat.,  continuing  thence  along  that 


we  were  present,  trying  to  mock  us  when  we  parallel  until  all  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi 
•were  speaking  French  or  German,  merely  to  i  are  passed,  and  completing  the  triangle  by  aline 
provoke  us  into  a  quarrel  ;  but  we  had  made  up  |  around  Chandeleur  in  St.  Bernard,  and  north  of 

Lake  Pontchartrain  to  the  31st  degree  of  N.  lat. 
—  an  area  of  low  alluvial  country,  comprehend- 
ing not  less  than  14,000  square  miles,  or  some- 


our minds  to  continue  to  bear  their  vulgarity, 
and  not  to  lose  our  tempers,  unless  provoked  by 
personal  violence,  in  which  case  we  had  con- 
certed what  to  do,  and  told  the  captain  of  our 
intentions.  They,  either  because  he  spoke  to 
them,  or  that  our  coolness  had  its  effect  upon 
them,  never  dared  to  go  so  far.  At  the  best  we 
passed  our  time  miserably,  and  were  much  de- 
tained hy  fogs.  We  passed  Baton  Rouge  in  the 
night  time,  and  after  daylight  soon  became 
fatigued  with  the  monotony  of  sugar  planta- 
tions succeeding  to  each  other,  the  sight  of 
•which  became  as  tedious  as  that  of  the  forests 
and  cane-brakes  had  been.  In  fact  we  were 
worn  out  with  the  horrid  scenes  we  had  gone 
through,  and  were  sighing  for  an  end  to  this 
painful  voyage.  At  length,  on  Sunday  morning 
the  4th  of  January,  we  reached  the  long  crescent 
of  shipping  moored  at  the  wharfs  of  New  Or- 
leans, in  one  of  the  deep  curvatures  of  the  riv- 
er ;  and  going  ashore  amidst  a  crowd  of  ill  look- 
ing people  working  as  steadily  as  if  they  had 
never  heard  of  Sunday,  and  cursing  and  swear- 
ing in  French  and  English,  we  proceeded  to  a 
Mons.  Marty's,  a  countryman  of  Mr.  T*******, 
and  there  took  our  lodgings. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

The  Delta  of  the  Mississippi— Shirtings  of  the  Channel  of 
the  River— Formation  of  new  land  at  its  mouth— Visit 
the  Cemeteries — Mode  of  contriving  dry  Graves — Pirati- 
cal-looking Population — Green  Peas  out  of  doors,  Jan.  1 
— Literature  and  the  Sciences — New  Orleans  American- 
ised—Sunday Evening  Meetings— Faro  the  principal 
business  transacted  in  New  Orleans — The  Legislature 
in  Session— Good  Theatres. 

IT  is  impossible  for  an  observant  traveller, 
accustomed  to  trace  the  effects  produced  by  the 
action  of  such  powerful  streams  as  the  Arkan- 
sas and  Red  River,  both  in  their  abrasive  power 
and  in  the  reproduction  of  the  sedimentary  mat- 
ter they  bear  along,  not  to  be  struck  with  those 
geological  modifications  established  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  country  by  the  combined  efforts  of 
all  the  tributaries  of  the  Mississippi,  as  they  are 


Upon  this  occasion  the  charge  brought  against  those  whose 
lives  were  sacrificed,  was  a 


of  the  sla 


as  a  conspiracy  to  organize  an  insur- 
The following  extract  is  made  from 


ne  of  the  newspapers  :  — 
"Twenty  miles  from   this   pl 


ace    (Jackson   in   Madison 

county),  a  company  of  white  men  and  negroes  were  detected 
before  they  did  any  mischief.  On  Sunday  last  they  hung 
two  steam  doctors,  one  named  Cotton  and  the  other  Saun- 
<Jers  ;  also  seven  negroes,  without  law  or  gospel,  and  from 
respectable  authority  we  learn  that  there  were  two  preach- 
ers and  ten  negroes  to  be  hanged  this  day." 

It  was  in  this  same  State  of  Mississippi  that  the  doctrine 
of"  Repudiation"  first  broke  out,  and  was  practised  in  the 
United  States:  a  mode  of  fiscal  purification  of  their  ex- 
chequer, almost  as  serious  in  its  effects  to  the  many  confi- 
ding creditors  it  has  ruined,  as  the  storms  with  which  they 
are  accustomed  to  purify  their  moral  condition  are  to  the 
objects  of  their  vengeance.  Indeed,  with  slight  alterations, 
the  justificatory  passages  above  quoted  would  seem  to  he 
equally  applicable  to  both  kinds  of  purification,  whether 
applied  to  creditors  or  gamblers. 


thing  more  than  one  quarter  of  the  area  of  Great 
Britain.  West  of  the  Atchafalaya  it  is  bounded 
by  prairies  and  high  pine  lands,  lying  in  Attaca- 
pas  and  Opelousas.  two  fine  districts  in  the  State 
of  Louisiana,  which  are  drained  by  streams  that 
empty  into  the  Atchafalaya  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexi- 
co. To  the  east  it  is  bounded  by  lands  similarly 
elevated,  so  that  the  whole  area  of  14,000  miles 
is  to  be  considered  as  an  ancient  gulf  into  which 
the  sedimentary  matter  brought  down  by  the 
Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  has  been  deposit- 
ed ever  since  the  ocean  abandoned  that  immense 
in  the  upper  country  which  is  now  drain- 
ed by  them,  and  which  comprehends  at  least 
one  million  of  square  miles.  Although  the 
breadth  of  the  river,  which  is  not  often  more 
than  1000  to  1500  yards  wide,  does  not  appear 
to  correspond  in  the  eyes  of  some  persons  with 
its  power,  it  nevertheless  contains  an  immense 
volume ;  for  its  depth  from  the  junction  of  the 
Arkansas  is  from  60  to  100  feet,  until  it  ap- 
proaches the  isthmus  near  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
when  it  decreases  very  much. 

What  has  been  already  observed  of  the  shift- 
ing  character  of  the  channels  of  the  Arkansas 
and  Red  River  applies  equally  to  the  Mississippi, 
traces  of  its  deviation  occurring  in  many  places 
in  the  numerous  lagoons  and  ancient  beds,  a 
principal  one  of  which  is  perhaps  on  the  line  of 
the  Amite  River,  a  stream  which  connects  the 
western  end  of  Lake  Pontchartrain  with  Iber- 
ville  River  and  the  present  channel  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. When  the  Mississippi  was  limited  to 
the  north  by  this  line,  perhaps  little  or  none  of 
the  area  of  land  south  of  it  appeared  above  the 
water,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been 
gradually  brought  to  the  surface  since  the  river 
deviated  from  an  east  to  a  south-east  course, 
sufficiently  appears  from  the  narrow  tongue-like 
isthmus  which  terminates  in  the  mouths  of  the 
river  a  little  north  of  the  29th  degree  ;  there  the 
stream,  constantly  carrying  the  finer  silt,  de- 
posits it  as  it  meets  resistance  from  the  waters 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  extends  it  annually 
into  the  gulf,  whilst  the  breadth  is  enlarged  at 
every  inundation  to  await  the  growth  of  a  future 
vegetation. 

This  extraordinary  exhibition  of  the  constant 
formation  of  new  land  by  a  river  bringing  down 
the  ruins  of  other  territories  was  so  vividly  im- 
pressed upon  my  mind,  that  the  very  first  thing 
I  did  after  securing  lodgings  was  to  go  to  one 
of  the  public  cemeteries,  to  see  how  they  man- 
aged to  inter  their  dead  in  a  country  so  low  and 
fiat  that  the  ground  must  be  thoroughly  saturated 
with  water,  and  where,  even  in  digging  the  foun- 
dations for  houses,  I  was  told  it  cornes  in  inva- 
riably at  a  depth  of  from  two  to  three  feet.  I 
found  several  new  graves  open  ready  to  receive 
their  tenants,  all  destined  to  repose  in  shells  of 


140 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA 


well-masoned  dry  brickwork  with  which  the 
graves  were  lined.  Here,  too,  I  collected  some 
fresh-water  shells  that  had  heen  ejected  with 
the  soil.  Nothing  can  be  more  fanciful  than 
these  cemeteries,  which  abound  in  bizarre  struc- 
tures of  painted  brickwork  placed  over  the 
graves,  except  the  strange  sentimental  inscrip- 
tions upon  them.  Having  gratified  my  curiosi- 
ty, I  roamed  until  night  through  the  old  French 
part  of  the  city,  a  dirty  confined  town  with  nar- 
row unpaved  streets,  often  impassable  with  mud, 
the  principal  of  which,  Rue  de  Chartres,  is  only 
forty  feet  wide. 

The  population  partook  strongly  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  latitude  it  was  in,  a  medley  of  Span- 
iards, Brazilians,  West  Indians,  French  Creoles, 
and  breeds  of  all  these  mixed  up  with  the  negro 
stock.  I  think  I  never  met  one  person  without 
a  cigar  in  his  mouth,  and  certainly,  taking  it  al- 
together, I  never  saw  such  a  piratical-looking 
population  before.  Dark,  swarthy,  thin,  whis- 
kered, smoking,  dirty,  reckless-looking  men ; 
and  filthy,  ragged,  screaming  negroes  and  mulat- 
toes,  crowded  even  Rue  de  Chartres,  where  our 
lodgings  were,  and  made  it  a  very  unpleasant 
quarter  to  be  in.  Notwithstanding  it  was  Sun- 
day, the  market  was  open,  and  there  I  saw 
green  peas  (January  1st),  salads,  bouquets  of 
roses,  bananas  from  Havanna,  and  various  good 
things  that  reminded  me  I  was  in  the  30th  de- 
gree of  N.  lat. 

In  the  American  quarter  the  streets  are  wider, 
the  houses  better  built,  and  substantial  improve- 
ments are  going  on ;  all  this,  no  doubt,  is  well 
warranted  by  the  commercial  advantages  which 
the  place  affords,  the  position  of  the  city  having 
rendered  it  the  present  emporium  of  this  part 
of  the  world ;  but  it  appeared  evident  to  me 
that  a  man  who  had  no  business  to  transact 
would  find  no  temptation  to  remain  long,  and 
would  be  entirely  out  of  place  here,  for  the  only 
object  men  can  have  in  coming  to  reside  in  a 
town  so  fatal  to  health  and  life  in  the  summer, 
and  so  uncomfortable  in  the  winter,  must  be  the 
accumulation  of  money.  That  I  am  sure  is 
every  man's  object  who  comes  to  New  Orleans. 
Having  stumbled  upon  a  rather  intelligent 
Frenchman — a  "  Francois  de  France,"  as  they 
call  them  here — who  sold  watch-keys  and  pam- 
phlets, and  oddities  of  one  kind  or  another,  I 
asked  him  if  there  was  a  museum  in  the  town, 
or  any  place  which  contained  objects  of  natural 
history.  His  answer  was,  "  Monsieur,  on  n'est 
pas  ici  pour  la  litterature  et  les  sciences,  mais 
pour  accrocher  quelque  chose,  et  puis  filer  le 
camp  avant  de  mourir." 

'The  Levee  is  a  wide  sloping  space  between 
the  town  and  the  river,  appropriated  to  the  ship- 
ping business  ;  and  on  approaching  the  city,  cer- 
tainly the  great  number  of  ships  and  steamers 
ranged  along  the  crescent  which  constitutes 
the  harbour,  produces  a  very  striking  spectacle. 
Perpendicular  from  the  river  there  is  a  wide 
street  called  Canal  Street,  which  separates  the 
quarter  where  the  Americans  reside,  from  the 
old  French  town  of  La  Nouvelle  Orleans,  now 
Anglicised  into  New  Orleans,  a  transition  which 
is  in  rapid  progress  with  everything ;  for  in  less 
than  fifty  years  the  influence  of  all  persons  of 
the'  French  race  will  be  utterly  extinguished  in 
New  Orleans  and  throughout  Louisiana.  Al- 
ready the  French  race  is  beginning  to  feel  this, 


I  and  to  witness  with  bitter  dissatisfaction  the 
'  superiority  of  the  Americans  in  everything  that 
depends  upon  activity  and   industry.     Within 
that  period  everything  French  here  will  be  ab- 
sorbed into  the  other  race. 

The  old  city,  which  once  was  the  centre  of 
every  sort  of  gayety  and  business,  is  already 
become  gloomy  and  partially  deserted.  Rue  de 
Chartres  is  less  so  because  the  shops  are  situated 
there,  but  in  the  other  streets  you  only  meet  with, 
a  few  anxious  Jewish-looking  faces  going  up 
and  down  the.  narrow  streets  that  run  at  right 
angles  to  the  principal  one,  looking  at  you  in- 
quiringly, as  if  they  would  willingly  transact 
some  sort  of  business  with  you  ;  but  the  well- 
dressed,  gallant,  careless,  and  cheerful  Creole 
gentleman  is  no  more  seen.  His  day  has  al- 
ready passed  by.  Rue  Royale  is  the  next  best 
street  running  parallel  with  Rue  de  Chartres, 
and  is  less  disagreeable,  because  there  are  but 
few  persons  to  be  seen  in  it.  A  walk  of  a  few 
minutes  from  this  brings  you  to  the  skirts  of  the 
city,  where  the  cypress  swamps,  though  filled 
with  water,  were  more  attractive  to  me  than 
anything  else,  for  the  graceful  palmetto  was 
there  in  great  profusion. 

One  of  the  most  agreeable  things  I  found  at 
New  Orleans  was  an  excellent  table  d'hote  at 
Mr.  Marty's,  at  which  there  was  every  day  the 
greatest  abundance  of  good  things  ;  all  the  dish- 
es were  admirably  cooked,  and  a  bottle  of  pretty 
fair  claret  was  placed  by  each  guest ;  but  in, 
other  respects  the  house  was  badly  kept,  all 
their  cares  seeming  to  be  given  to  the  table. 
There  was  no  fireplace  in  the  bed-rooms,  a  very 
bad  fire  in  the  public  room,  and  I  could  obtain 
no  place  to  write  in.  I  received  particular  an- 
noyance, too,  from  the  quick  eaters,  who  always 
began  to  smoke  ere  I  had  half  finished  my  re- 
past. There  was  a  much  better  American  hotel 
I  was  told,  but  as  it  was  filled  with  commercial 
persons,  I  thought  I  should  acquire  more  infor- 
mation from  the  guests  at  Marty's,  none  of 
whom  were  of  the  English  race. 

On  the  evening  of  our  arrival,  Mr.  T******** 
and  myself  walked  to  the  Exchange,  to  see  the 
newspapers,  where  we  found  a  large  but  very 
dark  room,  full  of  people  talking  French  and 
Spanish  as  fast  as  their  cigars  permitted.  It  re- 
minded me  of  some  of  the  large  coffee-houses  on 
the  Continent  at  the  period  when  the  French  first 
overran  Italy,  where  I  then  happened  to  be,  and 
where  all  seemed  anxious  by  their  conduct  to 
show  that  the  Lord's  day  should  receive  no  trib- 
ute of  respect  from  them.  On  our  return  to  our 
lodgings  we  had  more  abundant  proof  that  this 
was  the  order  of  the  day  at  New  Orleans ;  for  pas- 
sing a  house  with  a  small  vestibule,  a  doubledoor, 
and  lights  over  the  entrance,  I  took  it  for  grant- 
ed at.  first — seeing  various  people  slowly  enter- 
ing—that this  was  a  place  of  sectarian  worship, 
and  entered  with  the  rest,  taking  my  hat  off  at 
the  second  door.  A  great  many  devout  people 
had  already  preceded  me,  but  all  kept  their  hats 
on,  the  reason  for  which  I  perceived  as  soon  as 
I  got  in,  for  on  looking  around  I  saw  it  was  a 
public  gambling  room,  with  tables  laid  out  for 
faro  and  other  games.  A  crowd  of  the  com- 
monest class  of  ill-dressed  men,  consisting  of 
boat  and  raftsmen,  were  at  a  roulette  table 
playing  for  quarters  of  dollars.  We  entered 
two  others,  all  within  fifty  steps  of  the  Ex- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


141 


change,  and  found  the  same  scenes  going  on. 
The  men  that  kept  the  tables  were  all  Ame- 
ricans, of  the  same  class  with  those  I  had  been 
so  long  on  board  the  steamer  with.  I  was  in- 
formed afterwards  that  a  company  of  persons, 
almost  entirely  Americans,  had  collected  a  con- 
siderable fund  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on 
gambling,  and  that  they  had  branches  at  various 
places  quite  as  systematically  supported  as  if 
they  were  so  many  branches  of  banks,  especially 
at  such  watering-places  as  the  White  Sulphur 
Springs  in  Virginia,  where  they  -had  an  esta- 
blishment. If  we  had  visited  any  of  the  nu- 
merous gaming-tables  where  higher  stakes  are 
played  for — some  of  which  we  were  not  without 
invitations  to  visit — I  dare  say  I  should  have 
recognised  Colonel  Smith  '•  of  the  British  army ;" 
•but  satisfied  with  what  I  had  seen,  and  ima- 
gining the  rest,  I  did  not  avail  myself  of  the 
opportunity  of  witnessing  the  doings  of  "  re- 
spectable people"  at  such  places,  which  I  dare 
say  would  have  been  amusing  enough.  I  was 
told  the  houses  were  kept  open  day  and  night, 
the  "  gentlemen"  who  manage  the  tables  being 
divided  into  "  watches,"  those  who  are  on  duty 
all  night  lying  abed  all  day,  and  vice  versa. 
The  houses  here  alluded  to  are  frequented 
principally  by  Americans,  but  besides  these 
there  is  an  immense  number  kept  by  French- 
men, by  Creoles,  and  Spaniards.  A  gentleman 
•who  had  been  long  resident  here  told  me  that 
the  gambling-houses  had  increased  in  number 
with  the  commerce  of  the  place ;  and  that  al- 
though the  commercial  transactions  of  New 
Orleans  since  the  increased  cultivation  of  cot- 
ton had  risen  to  a  great  amount,  yet  he  believed 
that  gambling  was  the  principal  branch  of  busi- 
ness carried  on,  for  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
persons  who  came  here  from  the  West  Indies, 
from  South  America,  and  from  Mexico,  came 
to  indulge  in  this  their  favourite  propensity. 

I  was  so  fortunate  on  my  arrival  as  to  find 
the  legislature  of  Louisiana  in  session.  The 
legislative  rooms  were  small,  but  sufficiently 
•commodious  for  the  limited  number  of  mem- 
bers who  are  convened.  Business  is  trans- 
acted in  both  the  French  and  English  tongues. 
Monsieur  Pilot,  a  clerk  in  one  of  the  houses,  is 
said  to  be  a  person  who  has  acquired  an  extra- 
ordinary facility  of  translating  the  speeches  of 
members  from  one  language  to  the  other,  being 
able  to  furnish  immediately,  for  the  use  of  those 
•who  do  not  understand  English,  a  version  of  an 
American  speech  with  such  accuracy  as  to  give 
perfect  satisfaction.  I  did  not  learn  whether  he 
is  obliged  to  do  this  upon  every  occasion,  but  I 
imagine  there  must  be  a  great  many  speeches 
delivered  hardly  worth  listening  to  a  second 
time  by  those  who  understand  both  languages. 
The  members  appeared  to  be  a  very  respectable 
class  of  men  in  both  houses,  and  were  prin- 
cipally planters  and  lawyers. 

There  are  two  theatres  in  the  place,  an  Ame- 
rican and  a  French  house,  both  of  them  exceed- 
ingly neat ;  and  I  was  very  much  struck  with 
the  unexpected  decorum  prevailing  in  them. 
Each  has  its  parquet,  so  that  you  have  a  very 
comfortable  stall  during  the  peformance.  The 
French  theatre  is  in  fact  an  opera-house,  and 
appeared  to  be  very  well  conducted  :  few  ladies 
•were  there  the  evening  I  visited  it,  and  those  I 
saw  were  not  remarkable  for  their  ton  or  per- 


sonal beauty,  of  which  I  had  heard  a  great  deal, 
the  Quadroon  Creoles  having  been  somewhat 
extravagantly  described  to  me  as  females  beau- 
tiful beyond  all  others,  and  very  conspicuous  for 
"  une  belle  taille,  et  une  gorge  magnitique."  I 
had  occasion  to  see  a  good  many  of  them  during 
my  stay,  at  a  ball  or  two  I  had  access  to  ;  and 
certainly  it  must  be  allowed  that  they  are  "  bien 
mises,"  and  carry  their  persons  very  well ;  but 
in  the  lips  and  mouth,  and  in  an  unpleasing 
coarse  texture  of  the  skin,  the  negro  blood 
shows  itself  very  distinctly. 


CHAPTER  XL 

Quadroon  young  Ladies,  their  hard  fate— Liaisons  of  a 
Bal  de  Societt — An  amiable  Father  of  several  Families 
— Good  Prospect  for  the  Anglo-Episcopal  Church — 
Spanish  Cathedral— Depart  from  New  Orleans— A 
Railroad — Embark  in  a  Steamer  for  Mobile — A  Storm 
—A  Bishop  on  Board— Come  to  an  anchor— The  Bay 
and  River  of  Mobile— Tokens  of  Commercial  Activity 
—Beauty  and  Cleanliness  of  the  town  of  Mobile- 
Spanish  Creoles— The  Bolero. 

THE  position  of  this  unfortunate  race  of  wo- 
men is  a  very  anomalous  one ;  for  Quadroons, 
who  are  the  daughters  of  white  men  by  half- 
blooded  mothers,  whatever  be  their  private 
worth  or  personal  charms,  are  forbidden  by  the 
laws  to  contract  marriage  with  white  men.  A 
woman  may  be  as  fair  as  any  European,  and 
have  no  symptom  of  negro  blood  about  her ; 
she  may  have  received  a  virtuous  education, 
have  been  brought  up  with  the  greatest  tender- 
ness, may  possess  various  accomplishments, 
and  may  be  eminently  calculated  to  act  the  part 
of  a  faithful  wife  and  tender  mother;  but  if  it 
can  be  proved  that  she  has  one  drop  of  negro 
blood  in  her  veins,  the  laws  do  not  permit  her 
to  contract  a  marriage  with  a  white  man  ;  and 
as  her  children  would  be  illegitimate,  the  men 
do  not  contract  marriages  with  them.  Such  a 
woman  being  over-educated  for  the  males  of 
her  own  caste,  is  therefore  destined  from  her 
birth  to  be  a  mistress,  and  great  pains  are 
lavished  upon  her  education,  not  to  enable  her 
to  aspire  to  be  a  wife,  but  to  give  her  those 
attractions  which  a  keeper  requires. 

The  Quadroon  balls  are  places  to  which  these 
young  creatures  are  taken  as  soon  as  they  have 
reached  womanhood,  and  there  they  show  their 
accomplishments  in  dancing  and  conversation 
to  the  white  men,  who  alone  frequent  these 
places.  When  one  of  them  attracts  the  atten- 
tion of  an  admirer,  and  he  is  desirous  of  form- 
ing a  liaison  with  her,  he  makes  a  bargain  with 
the  mother,  agrees  to  pay  her  a  sum  of  money, 
perhaps  2000  dollars,  or  some  sum  in  propor- 
tion to  her  merits,  as  a  fund  upon  which  she 
may  retire  when  the  liaison  terminates.  She  is 
now  called  "  une  placee  ;"  those  of  her  caste 
who  are  her  intimate  friends  give  her  fetes,  and 
the  lover  prepares  "  un  joli  appartement  meu- 
hle."  With  the  sole  exception  of  "going  to 
church,"  matters  are  conducted  very  much  as 
if  a  marriage  had  been  celebrated  ;  the  lady  is 
removed  to  her  establishment,  has  her  little 
coteries  of  female  friends,  frequents  their  "  Bals 
de  Societe,"  and  brings  up  sons  to  be  rejected 
by  the  society  where  the  father  finds  his  equals, 
with  daughters  to  be  educated  for  the  Quadroon 
balls,  and  destined  to  pursue  the  same  career 


142 


TRAVELS   IN   AMERICA. 


which  the  mother  has  done.  Of  course  it  fre- 
quently happens  that  the  men  get  tired  of  them 
and  form  new  liaisons  ;  when  this  happens  they 
return  to  their  mother  or  fall  back  upon  the 
fund  provided  for  them  in  that  case ;  and  in 
some  instances  I  was  informed  that  various  fa- 
milies of  daughters  by  the  same  father  appear 
at  the  Quadroon  hall  on  the  very  evenings  when 
their  legitimate  brother  is  present  for  the  pur- 
pose of  following  the  example  of  his  worthy 
Papa. 

A  very  amusing  anecdote,  illustrative  of  this 
state  of  society,  was  related  to  me  by  a  person 
who  had  been  a  resident  here  a  great  many 
years.  On  his  first  arival  in  New  Orleans,  be- 
fore it  had  become  such  a  bustling  place  as  it 
is  now,  and  when  the  French  population  had 
rather  the  dessus,  he  presented  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  a  "  habitant"  of  great  respectability, 
by  whom  he  was  politely  Received,  and  invited 
to  dine  en  famtlle  the  same  day.  Nobody  was 
present  at  the  dinner  but  the  wife  of  Monsieur 

C ,  an  agreeable  and  well  educated  Creole 

lady,  a  native  of  the  place,  and  three  of  their 

children.  He  found  Monsieur  C a  lively 

agreeable  Frenchman,  full  of  bonhommie,  and  re- 
ceived a  great  deal  of  pleasant  and  useful  in- 
formation from  him.  Happening  amongst  other 
questions  to  ask  him  how  many  children  he 

had,  Monsieur  G gave  him  the  following 

account  of  his  domestic  relations  : — 

"  Combien  d'enfants,  Monsieur  1  Ah  !  voyons 
un  pen,  si  on  pourrait  vous  dire,  Ce!a !  Nous 
avons  d'ahord,  oui,  nous  avons  quatre  nes  a  la 
Rue  Royale,  puis  trois  en  haul  la  de  la  Rue  de 
Chartres ;  il  y  a  encore  les  deux  Montbrillons, 
mon  fils  qui  est  an  sucrier,  et  puis  les  trois 
petits  que  vous  voyez.  Voila  le  bout  du  compte, 
a  ce  que  je  pense  ;  n'est  ce  pas,  ma  chere  ?" 
patting  the  head  of  one  of  the  children,  and  ad- 
dressing himself  in  the  most  confiding,  affec- 
tionate way  to  Madame. 

It  is  evident  that  the  future  population  of 
New  Orleans  is  likely  to  afford  a  rare  specimen 
of  the  form  society  can  be  made  to  take  in  -a 
semi-tropical  climate,  where  the  passions  act 
unrestrainedly,  and  where  money  is  the  esta- 
blished religion  of  the  country. 

I  was  gratified  however  to  find  that  the 
Anglo-episcopal  church  was  raising  its  head 
here  ;  at  present  there  is  but  one  episcopal  con- 
gregation, but  I  should  imagine  its  members  to 
be  zealous  and  spirited,  for  I  was  shown  a  very 
handsome  design  of  a  church  which  they  are 
about  building  ;  and  a  Protestant  clergyman  in- 
formed me  that  a  project  is  on  foot  to  put  the 
States  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  and  Alabama 
under  one  Protestant  episcopal  diocese.  Men 
of  liberal  education  and  correct  lives  in  the 
United  States  seem  naturally  to  fall  into  the 
bosom  of  the  episcopal  church,  for  there  they 
find  that  attractive  order  of  worship  and  steadi- 
ness of  purpose  which  so  powerfully  encourage 
them  to  persevere  in  that  purity  of  life  which 
generally  distinguishes  individuals  of  their  class. 

The  only  curious  specimen  of  architecture 
here,  with  the  exception  of  the  old-fashioned 
French  one-story  houses  with  windows  reach- 
ing to  the  ground,  is  the  old  Spanish  cathedral, 
in  one  of  the  public  squares  in  the  old  town, 
built  somewhat  in  the  Morisco  style. 

Having  gratified  my  curiositv  until  I  bad  not 


the  slightest  desire  left  to  remain  an  hour  long 
er,  I  took  leave  of  New  Orleans — a  city  where 
all  agree  in  the  worship  of  mammon,  and  where 
the  undertaker  looks  with  as  much  periodical 
anxiety  to  the  season  of  his  harvest  as  tiie  spec- 
ulator in  cotton  does  to  his.  Starting  for  Lake 
Pontchartrain  the  7th  January,  1835,  by  a  well- 
constructed  railroad  of  five  miles  which  they 
have  laid  in  the  swamp,  we  made  the  distance 
in  about  fifteen  minutes,  and  embarked  on  board 
the  steamer  Otto.  Lake  Pontchartrain  is  a  tine 
arm  of  the  sea  which  communicates  with  Lake 
Borgne,  a  hay  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  by  a  chan- 
nel called  Rigolet,  which  is  about  half  a  mile 
wide,  and  distant  twenty-seven  miles  from  New 
Orleans.  We  had  scarce  made  five  miles  when 
the  wind  blew  a  gale  a-head,  and  the  weather 
came  on  very  stormy,  with  heavy  rains :  this 
retarded  our  voyage,  and  made  us  uncomforta- 
ble. Our  fellow-passengers  however  were  of  a 
much  better  kind  than  those  on  board  the  Lit- 
tle Rock  steamer,  and  sick  as  I  was  I  felt  com- 
paratively happy.  From  the  Rigoletswe  coast- 
ed along  the  low  shores  of  the  States  of  Mis- 
sissippi and  Alabama,  inside  of  a  number  of 
small  islands  that  separate  St.  Catharine's 
Sound  from  the  Gulf,  the  distance  to  the  en- 
trance of  the  Bay  of -Mobile  being  about  115 
miles. 

The  sea  was  very  high*  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  as  cross  and  troublesome  as  I  have  ever 
seen  it  almost  in  the  Gulf  of  Lyons  :  we  ship- 
ped a  great  deal  of  water,  and  some  of  the  pas- 
sengers began  to  entertain  apprehensions  that 
the  steamer  would  founder  ;  in  fact  if  she  had 
been  as  flimsy  as  many  of  those  that  ply  upon 
the  Mississippi,  we  should  have  stood  very  lit- 
tle chance  of  being  saved.  If  we  had  had  my 
old  acquaintances  the  blaspheming  gamblers  on 
board,  I  should  have  been  disposed  to  think 
that  their  imprecations  had  been  heard,  and 
that  the  day  of  reckoning  had  arrived  ;  but  for- 
tunately one  of  our  passengers  was  the  Bishop 
of  Connecticut,  on  a  tour  in  the  Southern  States. 
Although  the  presence  of  this  gentleman  was 
very  favourable  to  the  preservation  of  decorum 
on  board,  the  captain  did  not  seem  to  consider 
him  as  a  sufficient  guarantee  against  the  furi- 
ous storm  we  had  to  contend  against,  for  in  the 
night  he  bore  up  under  the  lee  of  an  island,  and 
came  to  an  anchor  until  daybreak,  to  the  great 
satisfaction  of  the  timid  and  the  indisposed.  As 
we  approached  the  entrance  of  Mobile  Bay  the 
wind  lulled,  the  rain  ceased,  and  a  fine  sunny 
sky  appeared,  so  that  the  steamer  becoming 
quiet  we  were  all  enabled  to  put  our  persons  in 
some  order,  and  take  a  look  at  each  other  as 
well  as  the  boat.  What  I  saw  of  this  last  con- 
vinced me  that  the  captain  had  acted  very  pru- 
dently in  coming  to  an  anchor,  and  that  our 
danger  had  been  greater  than  I  had  apprehend*- 
ed.  Generally  speaking  the  weather  is  so  sun- 
ny and  mild  in  this  part  of  the  gulf,  that  almost 
any  kind  of  boat  is  thought  sufficient  for  the 
voyage,  hut  it  requires  one  of  the  staunchest 
vessels  to  keep  out  in  such  a  storm  as  we  ex- 
perienced ;  and  if  it  had  been  so  dark  as  to 
prevent  our  reaching  an  anchorage,  we  should 
probably  have  been  driven  upon  some  shoal  and 
all  perished. 

We  had  a  fine  run  of  thirty  miles  up  the  bay 
to  Mobile,  which  is  built  at  the  mouth  of  the 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


143 


river  Mobile,  a  fine  stream  formed  by  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Tombcckbee,  that  receives  the 
Black  Warrior  from  the  north-east,  and  the  riv- 
er Alabama,  which  gives  its  name  to  the  State. 
The  Tombeckbee,  which  is  the  north-west 
branch  of  the  river  Mobile,  takes  its  rise  up- 
wards of  300  miles  from  the  city  of  Mobile,  and 
is  navigable  for  the  greater  part  of  that  distance, 
a  circumstance  which  gives  a  great  intrinsic 
value  to  the  fertile  soil  through  which  it  passes. 
The  Alabama,  the  north-east  branch  of  the  Mo- 
bile, takes  its  rise  in  the  Cherokee  country  to- 
wards the  south-western  termination  of  the 
Allegheny  belt,  more  than  400  miles  from  the 
city  of  Mobile,  and  is  formed  by  various  tributa- 
ries, such  as  the  Cahawba,  the  Coosa,  and  the 
Tallapoosa.  The  serpentine  course  which  these 
streams  have  assumed  nearly  doubles  the  length 
of  their  navigation. 

As  we  entered  the  mouth  of  the  Bay  of  Mo- 
bile we  saw  between  thirty  and  forty  vessels 
riding  at  anchor  below  :  this  they  are  obliged  to 
do  on  account  of  the  extreme  shallowness  of 
water  in  the  bay,  occasioned  by  the  River  Mo- 
bile constantly  depositing  great  quantities  of 
silt,  in  the  manner  that  is  done  by  the  Missis- 
sippi. Many  of  these  vessels  were  three-mast- 
ed, and  their  number  betokened  great  com- 
mercial activity  at  this  point  of  export  for  the 
productive  cotton-lands  of  the  States  of  Mis- 
sissippi and  Alabama.  On  reaching  the  city  we 
also  found  the  wharves  crowded  with  steamers 
and  vessels  of  small  burden.  The  lower  part 
of  Mobile  is  built  upon  the  shore  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  river,  and  the  streets  near  to  the 
water  are  dirty  and  narrow  ;  but  the  land  im- 
mediately begins  to  rise  by  a  gentle  acclivity  to 
a  plateau  about  sixty  feet  from  the  level  of  the 
stream.  What  I  had  previously  heard  of  Mobile 
was- not  very  much  in  its  favour,  and  what  I  had 
seen  of  the  other  towns  in  this  climate  had  not 
raised  my  expectations.  On  reaching  this  pla- 
teau therefore,  and  observing  its  extent,  I  was 
surprised  at  the  peculiar  beauty  of  the  place, 
for  it  consisted  of  streets  well  laid  out  at  right 
angles,  with  excellent  sidewalks,  the  streets 
between  them  being  graduated  and  macadam- 
ised with  the  sea  shells  that  are  found  in  the 
greatest  abundance  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Pon- 
chartrain  and  other  places,  and  in  so  perfect  a 
manner  as  to  form  the  most  solid  and  the  clean- 
est streets  I  ever  have  seen  in  any  country. 
One  of  these  streets,  where  the  market  is,  is 
100  feet  broad,  and  is  finished  in  a  very  admira- 
ble style  for  a  distance  of  more  than  two  miles 
from  the  river.  The  buildings,  too,  are  appro- 
priate to  the  beauty  and  width  of  the  street, 
some  of  them  being  stately  structures  of  brick, 
denoting  opulence  in  the  proprietors  ;  and  in 
the  pretty  but  more  contracted  streets  that  go 
off  at  right  angles  are  numerous  houses  built 
of  wood,  neatly  painted  white,  with  large  plots 
of  land  attached  to  them,  fenced  in  with  paint- 
ed pitting*, 

At  every  step  I  took  I  was  more  and  more 
struck  with  the  universal  love  of  order,  and  the 
good  taste  which  seemed  to  prevail.  The  ex- 
cellent example  which  Mobile  has  set  to  the 
other  towns  in  these  latitudes  deserves  more 
praise  than  it  appears  to  have  received.  I  did 
not  even  suspect  existence  anywhere  of  so  many 
wise  precautions  to  disarm  the  Yellow  Fever  of 


its  malignity,  which,  though  now  much  mitiga- 
ted, has  often  been  so  fatal  to  the  citizens  of  the 
place.  Beyond  the  houses  are  extensive  sandy 
plains  covered  with  pine-trees,  and  a  thick  un- 
derwood of  evergreens,  consisting  of  Ilex  cas- 
sine  loaded  with  its  bright  red  berries,  juniper, 
and  other  plants.  Many  of  the  citizens  have 
built  little  villas  in  these  healthy  plains,  to 
which  they  retire  both  to  avoid  the  extreme 
heat  of  the  summer  and  the  yellow  fever.  The 
population  at  this  time  is  said  to  be  upwards  of 
6000,  and  from  its  great  advantages  as  a  com- 
mercial position,  its  beauty,  and  comparative 
salubrity,  it  is  probable  that  it  will  increase  ra- 
pidly. On  the  score  of  health  it  is,  as  a  resi- 
dence, infinitely  to  be  preferred  to  New  Orleans, 
for  that  city  stands  in  the  midst  of  a  swamp, 
which  is  a  magazine  of  malaria  that  explodes 
every  autumn,  whilst  Mobile  has  the  sea-air  in 
front,  and  a  dry  arenaceous  back  country,  where 
vegetable  decomposition  is  comparatively  in- 
noxious. But  the  good  sense  of  the  citizens, 
which  has  secured  and  improved  all  its  natural 
advantages,  must  soon  acquire  for  this  pretty 
town  the  excellent  reputation  which  it  deserves. 

While  rambling  about  I  was  attracted  by  the 
sound  of  a  guitar  coming  from  a  very  old-fash- 
ioned looking  house  in  one  of  the  smaller  streets, 
accompanied  by  some  very  fine  voices,  which 
seemed  to  infuse  life  and  spirits  to  many  cheer- 
ful persons,  some  of  whom,  I  knew  by  the  sound 
of  their  steps,  and  by  the  time  they  kept,  were 
dancing  a  bolero.  Mobile  was  first  colonised 
by  the  Spaniaids,  and  those  individuals  of  that 
race  who  are  still  here  now  stand  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  Americans  that  the  French  in 
Louisiana  do.  Curious  to  see  some  of  the 
Spanish  Creoles,  I  opened  the  door  gently  and 
entered.  Two  Spaniards  were  dancing  with 
much  grace  and  national  feeling,  whilst  about 
a  dozen  men  and  women  were  looking  on  and 
singing.  I  had  scarce  entered  when  the  mas- 
ter of  the  house  came  to  me  to  inform  rne,  I 
suppose,  that  it  was  a  private  house  ;  but  I  an- 
ticipated him  by  telling  him  I  was  a  stranger, 
and  passionately  fond  of  the  bolero.  He  smiled, 
and  said  I  was  welcome,  so  I  remained  near  an 
hour,  highly  delighted,  for  I  had  not  witnessed 
anything  of  the  kind  for  a  great  many  years. 

On  my  return  at  night  to  the  hotel  where  I 
had  taken  my  luggage,  I  learnt  that  a  steamer, 
•-ailed  the  Chippcwa,  would  leave  Mobile  a  little 
after  midnight  for  Wetumpka,  about  350  miles 
up  the  Alabama  and  Coosa.  Finding  nothing 
to  induce  me  to  prolong  my  stay  at  Mobile  until 

steamer  should  offer  for  the  Appal  achicolct. 
River,  which  I  was  desirous  of  going  up,  I  de- 
termined to  go  and  look  at  this  steamer,  and 
get  some  information  of  the  character  of  the 

sengers.  There  are  no  towns  of  importance 
on  either  of  those  rivers  to  attract  travelling; 
gamblers,  but  the  Appalachicola  is  perhaps  the 
least  frequented  by  them,  which  was  one  of  my 
reasons  for  prefering  it.  Finding  the  steamer, 
however,  a  pretty  fair  one,  and  receiving  a  sat- 
isfactory account  as  to  the  rest,  I  engaged  pas- 
sages for  my  companion  and  myself,  and  trans- 
ferring our  luggage  on  board,  the  steamer  now 
became  our  hotel,  and  we  took  possession  of 
our  respective  berths,  or  state-rooms  as  they  are 
called. 


144 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 


Embark  in  a  Steamer,  and  ascend  the  Mobile  and  Alaba- 

baina  —  Tertiary  deposits  at  Fort  Claiborne  —  Great  fer- 

tility of  the  State  of  Alabama  —  Aptitude  of  the  Greek 

Indians  for  labour—  Reach  Montgomery,  in  Alabama— 

Filthiness  of  the  "  principal"  Hotel  —  Engage  a  carriage 

to  cross  the  Indian  Territory  —  Country  inundated  —  Cross 

the  Oakfuskee  and  enter  the  Creek  Nation. 

WE  got  away  some  time  after  midnight,  and 

going  upon  deck  at  break  of  day,  I  found  we 

were  in  the  Mobile  River.     It  resembled  the 

Arkansas  in  the  flatness  of  surface  of  the  coun- 

try, but  with  the  material  exception  that  the 

river  being  unusually  high,  we  could  see  no 

banks  whatever  to  it  ;  the  forest-trees  and  the 

cane-brakes,  which  were  very  abundant  and 

thick,  being,  as  far  as  we  could  see,  about  ten 

feet  under  water  from  their  roots  upwards. 

About  forty  miles  from  Mobile  we  passed  the 
junction  of  the  Tombeckbee  and  Alabama,  the 
breadth  of  this  last  being  here  about  150  yards. 
During  the  whole  of  this  day  the  country  was 
under  water,  the  vegetation  standing  in  it  in  the 
greatest  profusion.  I  was  therefore  not  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  the  live  oaks  (Quercus  sem- 
pervirens),  and  all  the  other  species  of  oaks 
found  in  these  latitudes,  which  are  periodically 
subject  to  this  kind  of  inundation,  are  not  con- 
sidered sound  timber.  Towards  evening  the 
land  began  to  rise,  and  tired  with  the  monotony 
of  th^e  scene,  we  were  heartily  glad  to  see  the 
ground  again.  On  reaching  Fort  Claiborne, 
distant  from  Mobile  near  150  miles  of  serpentine 
navigation,  I  found  the  bluffs  were  about  150  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  river,  and  a  short  deten- 
tion enabled  me  to  take  a  look  at  the  beds  of 
tertiary  shells  in  the  banks  and  make  a  collec- 
tion of  some  of  them  ;  but  as  the  fossils  found 
•in  these  deposits  have  been  already  collected, 
and  probably  will  soon  be  accurately  described, 
by  that  very  modest  and  intelligent  naturalist 
Mr.  T.  A.  Conrad,  who  is  decidedly  the  first  au- 
thority amongst  the  fossil  conch,  ilogists  of  the 
United  States,  I  omit  any  remarks  respecting 
them  for  the  present.  From.  h?nce  to  Prairie 
•Bluffs,  the  country  rises  to  a  still  higher  level, 
and  live  oaks  and  laurels  of  every  kind  abound, 
•the  trees  being  occasionally  loaded  with  curtains 
of  forest-moss  (Tillandsia,  usnoidcs)  hanging  to 
the  ground,  and  frequently  bearing  immense 
bunches  of  mistletoe  in  their  tops.  At  Prairie 
Bluffs,  where  we  arrived  the  next  morning,  I 
found  several  subcretaceous  shells,  the  same 
exogyra  which  is  in  such  abundance  at  Judge 
•Cross's,  in  Arkansas,  and  some  ammonites 
-which  I  had  not  seen  before.  The  Bluffs  here 
is  only  about  half  the  height  of  that  at  Fort 
Claiborne,  and  the  tertiary  beds  have  probably 
"been  washed  away  from  the  subcretaceous  ones. 
"We  now  proceeded  to  Canton  through  a  very 
attractive  country,  which  might  be  explored 
•with  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction  at  a  healthy 
season  of  the  year.  I  was  informed  that  some 
•wells  had  been  dug  in  these  parts  about  500 
feet  deep,  through  the  subcretaceous  limestone 
teds,  into  a  quartzose  slate,  which,  from  the 
description  I  received  of  it,  is  probably  a  con- 
tinuation of  that  which  underlies  the  great 
limestone  valley  of  the  Alleghanies.  Cahawba 
is  a  settlement  on  a  high  bluff  of  land  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Cahawba  River,  built  upon  a  rot- 
ten limestone  which  appears  formed  of  broken- 
down  testaceous  matter.  From  hence  to  Ver- 


l  non  the  river  averages  about  eighty  yards  in 
I  breadth,  and  the  high  bluffs  are  continuous, 
sometimes  extending  a  mile  or  two  without  any 
depression.  From  Vernon  to  Montgomery  the 
distance  is  estimated  at  fifty  miles  ;  the  banks, 
consisting  of  ferruginous  earths  and  sands  with 
a  good  deal  of  gravel,  being  generally  about  100 
feet  in  height. 

After  a  tolerably  interesting  and  peaceful  voy- 
age, we  reached  Montgomery  in  the  afternoon 
of  the  12th  of  January,  and  here  the  steamer 
was  to  stop  some  time.  The  Coosa  was  still 
navigable  forty  miles  to  Weturnpka,  a  place  near 
the  falls  of  the  river,  but  the  captain  intending 
to  remain  some  time  here  before  he  proceeded 
up,  I  determined  to  leave  the  boat.  It  would 
have  been  agreeable  to  me  to  have  visited  the 
falls,  because,  from  the  information  I  received, 
the  rocks  there  were  gneiss,  and  this  was  one 
of  the  points  of  limitation  of  the  sedimentary 
beds,  from  which  the  ocean  had  last  retired  : 
besides,  I  heard  that  bituminous  coal,  which  is 
also  found  on  the  Black  Warrior  and  other  parts 
of  Alabama,  existed  on  a  partial  line  not  far 
from  the  Weturnpka  falls,  which  is  exactly  the 
manner  in  which  the  Chesterfield  coal-field  in 
Virginia  is  situated  in  relation  to  the  falls  on 
James  River  at  Richmond  ;  and  one  of  the  in- 
teresting questions  suggested  by  the  geology  of 
North  America  is  as  to  whether  there  is  a  line 
of  coal-fields  in  the  United  States  east  of  the 
Allegheny  mountains,  running  in  detached  ba- 
sins from  Virginia  to  Alabama.  If  the  foliage 
had  been  out,  the  country  would  have  been 
beautiful ;  but  considering  the  softness  of  the 
climate  here,  and  the  great  fertility  of  the  soil 
in  Alabama,  it  is  not  surprising  that  people 
should  flock — as  they  do — to  this  favoured  part 
of  the  United  States.  Still,  with  all  its  advan- 
tages, I  must  say  that  I  would  rather  be  a  visiter 
than  a  sojourner  in  the  land  :  the  persecuting 
malaria,  which  never  pardons  the  country  a  sin- 
gle season,  is  of  itself  a  great  objection,  and  the 
universal  and  extravagant  use  of  tobacco  by  the 
people  would  be  to  me  another  of  equal  magni- 
tude ;  so,  what  with  the  effluvia  of  nature  and 
man  combined,  this  fine  country,  with  all  its 
advantages,  seems  to  fall  very  far  short  of  a  ter- 
restrial Paradise. 

I  was  glad  to  leave  the  boat,  which  was  a 
very  dirty  concern,  and  nothing  could  he  less 
tempting  than  our  fare;  some. of  the  passengers 
were  kind  and  communicative,  but  others  were 
too  fond  of  gambling,  and  spitting,  and  smoking 
to  permit  the  enjoyment  of  much  comfort. 
These  were  not  Mobile  people,  but  individuals 
going  to  different  plantations,  roads  to  which 
come  out  upon  the  river ;  and  at  most  of  these 
communications  we  either  landed  or  took  in 
persons  on  the  way,  but  they  were  all  coarse  in 
their  manners,  and  in  many  instances  very  dis- 
gusting. In  an  inordinate  love  of  tobacco  they 
all  agreed,  and  it  appeared  to  me  that  those 
whom  the  mania  for  this  weed  had  seized  in 
the  strongest  degree  were  always  the  most  care- 
less about  their  manners,  as  if  it  were  out  of 
character  for  a  tobacco-eater  to  be  decent.  A 
few  of  the  men  employed  on  board  the  steamer 
were  Muskogee,  or  Creek  Indians ;  this  was 
the  first  time  I  had  seen  aborigines  employed  as 
labourers,  and  from  the  activity  they  showed 
when  we  stopped  to  take  in  fuel,  I  could  not 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


145 


but  think  that  if  a  different  policy  had  been  ob- 
served towards  this  unfortunate  race,  good  do- 
mestic servants  and  labourers  might  have  been 
furnished  from  them  in  time,  more  intelligent 
than  the  negro,  and  fitted  to  the  climate ;  but 
these  considerations  come  too  late — the  fate  of 
the  Indians  is  sealed. 

From  the  landing  we  had  to  walk  a  mile  to 
Montgomery,  a  small  straggling  town  with  a 
population  of  from  two  to  three  thousand  inhab- 
itants, built  upon  a  deposit  of  sand  and  red  blu- 
ish clay,  which,  with  occasional  patches  of  rot- 
ten limestone  in  the  local  prairies  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood, constitute  the  general  soil  of  this  part 
of  the  country. 

The  two  principal  streets  are  very  broad,  in 
the  style  common  to  all  the  southern  towns,  and 
from  the  great  number  of  stores  in  them, 
amounting  at  least  to  one  hundred,  it  would 
seem  to  be  a  place  of  extensive  inland  business  ; 
but  of  all  the  horrid  filthy  places  into  which  I 
ever  entered  in  any  country,  I  think  the  prin- 
cipal hotel  here,  which  was  the  one  to  which  we 
were  directed  by  common  consent  of  all  those 
we  made  inquiries  of,  bears  the  dirty  palm. 
Everything  about  it  seemed  to  breathe  of  whis- 
key and  tobacco,  and  the  walls  of  the  bed-room 
to  which  I  was  shown  were  so  incoramunicably 
squirted  over  with  a  black-coloured  tobacco- 
juice,  and  with  more  disgusting  things,  that  it 
was  evident  the  visitors  to  the  place  were,  as  to 
manners,  but  little  raised  above  the  inferior  ani- 
mals. There  was  an  unfinished  hotel  then 
building  opposite,  but  what  the  other  hotels  were 
which  were  not  "principal,"  I  had  not  time  to 
ascertain.  I  regretted  much,  however,  that  I  had 
not  gone  to  one  of  them,  upon  the  very  chance 
that  they  could  not  be  worse,  and  might  be  bet- 
ter, following  the  principle  that  a  gentleman  of 
my  acquaintance  once  pursued  in  writing  from 
the  country  to  his  agent  in  New  York  :  "  The 
servants  you  have  sent  me  with  good  characters 
have  all  turned  out  so  ill,  that  you  will  oblige 
me  by  sending  those  I  am  in  want  of  at  present 
with  as  little  character  as  possible."  And  the 
plan  succeeded,  for  those  with  good  characters 
thinking  they  could  always  get  other  places,  did 
just  as  they  pleased,  whilst  the  others  being  anx- 
ious to  keep  their  places,  were  more  circum- 
spect in  their  conduct. 

There  was  little  temptation  to  remain  here, 
and  I  turned  my  attention  to  leaving  the  place 
as  soon  as  I  found  out  how  uncomfortable  it  was 
likely  to  be.  Upon  inquiry  I  found  that  the 
roads  through  the  Indian  territory  of  the  Creek 
nation,  through  which  I  had  now  to  pass  to  get 
into  the  State  of  Georgia,  were  excessively 
broken  up,  especially  the  Indian  bridges  which 
cross  the  great  swamps,  and  that  in  consequence 
thereof  the  letters  were  forwarded  on  horse- 
back, the  mail-stage  being  unable  to  run ;  so 
that  I  had  got  into  a  cleft  stick,  and  must  either 
remain  here  until  the  roads  became  passable  for 
the  mail — which  was  not  expected  until  spring 
— or  must  take  a  private  conveyance  and  pay 
any  price  they  might  think  proper  to  exact  of 
me.  The  landlord  was  the  person  I  had  to  deal 
with,  and  he  ended  a  monstrous  account  of  the 
difficulties  with  an  equally  monstrous  price  for 
conducting  us  in  a  miserable  vehicle  and  a  pair 
of  wretched  horses  to  Columbus,  in  Georgia, 
the  distance  being  ninety  miles.  After  a  good 
T 


deal  of  chaffering,  I  finally  agreed  to  give  him 
sixty-five  dollars,  which,  with  a  gratuity  to  the 
driver,  amounted  to  about  four  shillings  a  mile 
in  English  money. 

Instead  of -getting  off  early  the  next  morning 
as  had  been  agreed,  everything  had  to  be  repair- 
ed ;  but  at  length,  to  our  great  satisfaction,  we 
got  out  of  the  filthy  house  into  the  pine  woods, 
where  a  gentle  air  was  mournfully  but  pleasing- 
ly rustling  the  branches.  We  found  the  road  as 
we  advanced  quite  answering  to  the  description 
they  had  given  us  of  it,  being  so  frightfully  cut 
up  as  to  render  it  impossible  to  sit  in  the  vehi- 
cle :  wherever  it  was  dry  enough,  therefore,  we 
walked,  expecting  every  instant  to  see  the  car- 
riage overturned ;  and  indeed  the  manner  in 
which  it  survived  the  rolling  from  one  side  to 
the  other  was  quite  surprising.  The  black  fel- 
low, however,  who  drove  us,  seemed  to  take  it 
as  philosophically  as  if  there  was  nothing  un- 
common in  this  sort  of  motion ;  he  always 
urged  us  in  a  very  anxious  manner  to  get  in 
whenever  he  came  up  with  us,  and  seemed  to 
think  we  were  not  quite  right  in  our  senses  for 
preferring  to  walk  when  we  paid  so  much  for 
riding.  At  length  we  came  to  a  low  part  of  the 
country  completely  inundated,  where  it  was  im- 
possible to  walk,  the  water  being  in  many  places 
four  feet  deep.  Here  we  were  obliged  to  get  in, 
and  the  old  vehicle  took  to  rolling  in  such  a 
dreadful  manner  that  every  instant  we  expected 
to  be  soused  into  the  water;  and  what  rendered 
it  really  amusing  was,  that  we  were  constantly 
obliged  to  draw  up  our  limbs  on  the  seat,  for  the 
water  was  at  least  eight  inches  deep  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  carriage,  and  went  splashing  about  in 
the  most  extraordinary  manner.  All  this  time 
our  trunks,  which  were  lashed  on  behind,  were 
being  quietly  dragged  under  the  water.  Mine 
had  got  such  a  satisfactory  ducking  before  I  had 
time  to  think  of  it,  that  I  turned  my  attention 
exclusively  to  my  portfolio  and  instruments  to 
prevent  them  from  getting  wet,  casting  a  look 
now  and  then  at  my  companion,  who  never  hav- 
ing travelled  in  that  style  in  his  native  moun- 
tains, looked  very  woe-begone,  a;id  was  con- 
stantly exclaiming,  "  Mais  quel  pays  !  A-t-on 
jamais  vu  de  pareils  chemins!"  Fatigued  and 
wet,  we  reached  at  night  an  old  settler's  of  the 
name  of  M'Laughlin,  a  very  respectable  sort  of 
man,  who  lived  upon  some  of  the  land  which 
the  Creeks  had  been  compelled  to  surrender.  In 
the  course  of  the  day  we  had  only  made  four- 
teen miles,  and  the  whole  performance  had  been 
of  such  an  anomalous  character,  that,  persuaded 
it  could  not  have  been  got  up  for  less  than  that 
money  in  any  other  part  of  the  world,  I  became 
quite  reconciled  to  the  landlord  and  his  four 
shillings  a  mile. 

Next  morning  we  went  five  miles  to  Oakfus- 
kee  Creek  to  breakfast,  a  pretty  brawling  stream, 
forming  the  present  boundary  betwixt  the  Creeks 
and  the  State  of  Alabama,  which  we  crossed  in 
a  ferry-boat.  We  were  now  upon  Indian  terri- 
tory, still  possessed  by  the  Indians,  and  where 
the  laws,  manners,  and  customs  of  the  whites 
did  not  yet  prevail.  Captivated  in  my  youth  by 
what  I  had  read  and  heard  of  the  aboriginal  in- 
habitants of  North  America,  I  had  been  led  to 
visit  that  continent  as  early  as  1806,  more  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  the  tribes  of  red  men,  and 
studying  their  languages,  than  with  any  other 


146 


TRAVELS    IN   AMERICA. 


view,  and  in  the  succeeding  year  had  visited  I  the  people  whether  that  dignity  should  be  con- 
most  of  the  tribes  in  Upper  and  Lower  Canada,  I  tinued  in  his  hands,  they  not  only  insisted  upon 
with  others  dwelling  within  the  limits  of  the 
United  States.     The  insight  I  had  obtained  into 
the  anomalous  structure  of  the  Indian  dialects, 
which  is  to  the  ear  what  the  synthetic  arrange- 
ment of  Chinese  written  characters  is  to  the 


eye,  had  induced  me  to  seek  for  information  re- 
specting the  Cherokee  and  Muskogee,  or  Creek 
tongues ;  and  thus  becoming  familiar  with  the 


history  of  those  people,  I  could  not  but  feel  a    stances  occurring  which  made  it  doubtful  whether 


deep  interest  in  the  present  state  of  the  Creeks. 
to  which  they  had  been  brought  by  a  series 
of  events  that  made  them  deserving  of  sympathy 
and  admiration. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

Description  of  the  Muskogee  or  Creek  People— Their 
Sachem,  M'Gillivray— Their  Treaties  with  the  Ameri- 
can Government — The  Chiefs  corrupted  by  the  Geor- 
gians— Weatherford,  the  Sachem  of  the  Lower  Creeks, 
attacks  and  massacres  the  Garrison  of  Fort  Minims — 
General  Jackson  takes  the  Field — Fatal  Battle  of  Toho- 
peka,  or  the  Horse  Shoe— Weatherfbrd's  Heroic  Con 
duct — M'Intosh  betrays  his  countrymen,  and  is  Shot — 
The  Creeks  compelled  to  cede  all  their  Country— Apol- 
ogy for  the  Whites. 

THE  Muskogee,  or  Creek  people,  are  not  to  be 
considered  as  a  dull,  imbecile  race  of  aboriginal 
savages,  with  not  an  idea  beyond  that  of  sup- 
plying their  daily  wants  :  they  rather  resemble 
the  Suliots,  or  some  of  those  communities  of 
Asiatic  people,  who,  passionately  attached  to 
their  native  country,  have  contended  with  the 
most  desperate  valour  to  preserve  it  from  the 
invaders  whom  they  hated.  Inhabiting  an  ar- 
dent climate,  and  a  fertile  country  which  sup- 
plied all  their  wants,  war  and  the  chase,  at  the 
period  when  the  whites  first  appeared  amongst 
them,  were  the  pursuits  they  exclusively  gave 
themselves  up  to.  To  powerful  frames  and 
forms  of  great  symmetry,  they  united  activity 
of  person  and  undaunted  courage.  Their  cop- 
per-coloured complexions,  long  coarse  black 
hair,  and  dark  wild  eyes,  were  the  beau  ideal  of 
Indian  beauty  ;  and  perhaps  no  human  being 
could  be  more  remarkable  than  a  young,  well- 
made  Creek  warrior  on  horseback,  dressed  in  a 
gaudy  calico  hunting-shirt,  with  a  bright-colour- 
ed silk  handkerchief  wound  gracefully  round  his 
head  in  the  form  of  a  turban. 

Previous  to  the  year  1790  the  Muskogee  pop- 
ulation was  very  great,  and  claimed  dominion 
over  and  possessed  a  territory,  bounded  on  the 
east  by  the  Savannah  river,  which  comprehended 
perhaps  twenty-five  millions  of  acres  of  fertile 
land,  being  more  than  three-fourths  of  the  whole 
area  of  England.  But  about  that  period,  the 
population  of  the  State  of  Georgia  encroaching 
continually  upon  them,  they  found  it  necessary 
to  enter  into  negotiations  with  the  general  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  then  administered 
by  President  Washington. 

At  this  time  Alexander  M'Gillivray  was,  as 
he  had  long  been,  the  principal  chief  of  the 
Creek  people.  He  was  the  son  of  an  English- 
man by  a  Creek  woman,  had  been  well  educated 
at  Charlestan  in  South  Carolina,  and  was  fifty 
years  old.  At  the  death  of  his  mother,  who 
was  herself  a  half-breed,  he  became  first  sachem 
by  the  usages  of  the  nation  ;  but  leaving  it  to 


his  retaining  that  rank,  but  afterwards  called 
him,  as  if  oy  general  consent,  "  king  of  kings;"" 
and,  from  all  the  accounts  we  have  of  him,  he 
was  universally  beloved  by  the  people,  and  de- 
served their  attachment.  During  the  civil  war 


between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,  he  ad- 
hered to  the  mother  country,  and  fought  against 
the  Americans  ;  but,  after  the  peace,  circum- 


a  collision  might  not  take  place  between  the 
Georgians  and  his  people,  he  was  invited  by  the 
federal  authorities  to  New  York,  where  the 
seat  of  government  then  was  ;  and  going  there 
with  other  chiefs  in  1790,  was  well  received  by 
President  Washington,  with  whose  government 
he  concluded  a  treaty  in  the  month  of  August 
of  that  year.  This  treaty  was  the  first  of  twelve- 
that  have  been  made  by  the  United  States  with, 
the  Muskogee  nation,  and  each  of  them  has 
been  a  treaty  of  cession  except  the  last.  In  all 
the  others  the  Creeks  have  gradually  been  made 
to  cede  a  portion  of  their  country  adjoining  to 
their  neighbours  the  Georgians,  and  to  (all  back 
upon  the  remainder ;  in  each  case  that  remainder 
being  solemnly  guaranteed  to  them  by  the  United 
States.  The  tenth  treaty  left  them  a  very  limit- 
ed portion  of  their  ancient  country  ;  but  by  the 
eleventh  they  ceded  every  foot  of  land  contained 
in  that  limited  portion.  By  the  twelfth  and  last 
treaty,  the  United  States  government  stipulate 
to  give  them  certain  lands  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi for  their  nation  to  inhabit  for  ever  ;  that  is 
to  say,  until  the  white  population  shall  reach, 
them,  when  the  same  game  will  have  necessarily 
to  be  played  over  again. 

In  the  first  treaty,  made  in  the  year  1790,  are 
the  two  following  articles  : 

"  Art.  5.  The  United  States  solemnly  guaran- 
tee to  the  Creek  nation  all  their  lands  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States,  to  the  westward  and 
southward  of  the  boundary  described  by  the 
preceding  article. 

"  Art.  6.  If  any  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
or  other  person,  not  being  an  Indian,  shall  at- 
tempt to  settle  on  any  of  the  Creek  lands,  such, 
person  shall  forfeit  the  protection  of  the  United 
States  ;  and  the  Creeks  may  punish  him  or  notf 
as  they  please." 

The  manner  in  which  the  guarantee  in  the 
fifth  article  has  been  observed,  is  sufficiently 
explained  by  the  fact  that  by  the  succeeding 
treaties  the  Creeks  have  ceded  every  foot  of 
land  they  possessed  ;  and  as  to  the  sixth  article, 
which  provides  that  the  Creeks  may  punish  in- 
trudes upon  their  lands,  it  was  expressly  be- 
cause they  endeavoured  to  enforce  this  article, 
and  prevent  new  intruders  sealing  upon  their 
lands,  that  new  quarrels  arose  betwixt  them 
and  the  Georgians,  which  always  ended  in  a 
new  treaty  and  an  important  cession  of  the  land 
intruded  upon,  under  the  pretence,  generally, 
that  it  was  within  the  "chartered  rights  of 
Georgia." 

If  the  Creeks,  however,  had  remained  a  united 
people  in  their  resistance  to  these  encroach- 
ments, the  spoliation  of  their  territory  would  not 
have  proceeded  so  rapidly.  Unfortunately  they 
became  divided  amongst  themselves  by  the  arts 
of  the  white  men,  and,  as  has  often  occurred  in 
similar  cases,  the  party  that  maintained  the  in- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA 


147 


dependence  of  the  nation  was  opposed  by  a 
minority,  jealous  of  the  ascendancy  of  some  of 
the  chiefs,  and  which  rashly  sought  to  strengthen 
itself  by  the  counsels  and  aid  of  the  white  men, 
whose  sole  object  was  to  eject  them  all  from 
Ihe  country. 

As  early  as  1790  this  became  a  source  of 
weakness  to  the  nation.  M'Gillivray  in  his 
treaty  of  that  period,  had  made  an  important 
cession  of  territory  to  the  United  States,  upon 
tlie  ostensible  consideration  of  an  annuity  of 
1500  dollars,  and  a  present  of  "certain  valuable 
Indian  goods."  This  was  represented  as  an 
act  of  treason  to  his  nation  ;  it  was  said  that  he 
had  been  corrupted,  had  become  a  pensioner  of 
the  United  Slates,  and  had  ceded  a  part  of  their 
territory  without  the  consent  of  a  general  coun- 
cil of  the  people.  The  Sachem  was  so  much 
hurt  by  the  opposition  he  met  with  on  his  return, 
that  he  left  his  nation  for  awhile,  and  went  to 
the  Spanish  settlements,  from  whence,  however, 
he  reiurued,  and  appeared  for  a  time  to  have 
recovered  his  popularity ;  probably  this  was 
only  in  appearance,  for  he  again  went  to  Florida, 
and  died  at  Pensacola  in  1793. 

By  the  treaty  of  November  14,  1805,  another 
very  important  cession  of  territory  was  made  to 
the  United  States,  together  with  a  right  to  a 
horse  path  throughout  the  whole  Creek  territory, 
"  in  such  direction  as  shall,  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  be  considered  most  conve- 
nient," with  a  right  to  all  Americans  to  pass 
peaceably  thereon,  the  Creek  chiefs  stipulating 
to  k»t:i>  terry-boats  at  the  rivers  for  "  the  con- 
veyance ol  me,n  and  horses."  In  this  treaty, 
which  threw  the  whole  Creek  territory  open  to 
the  whites,  nothing  is  said  about  the  right  of 
the  Creeks  to  punish  intruders  on  their  lands  ; 
hut  the  United  States  agreed  to  give  to  the 
nation  12,000  dollars,  in  money  or  goods,  for 
the  term  of  eight  years,  and  11,000  dollars,  in 
money  or  goods,  for  the  term  of  the  ten  succeed- 
ing years,  without  interest. 

The  work  of  plunder  and  corruption  was  now 
rising  to  a  great  height ;  the  increasing  popula- 
tion of  Georgia  was  pressing  upon  the  Indians, 
and  the  legislature  of  that  State— in  which  the 
speculators  upon  Indian  lands  had  a  predomina- 
ting influence— carried  its  political  weight  to  the 
Congress  to  effect  these  treaties  that  were  to 
aggrandize  their  own  State  and  satisfy  the  ra- 
pacity of  their  own  citizens,  who  were  the  spec- 
ulators and  politicians  for  whose  benefit  these 
treaties  were  to  be  made.  At  all  times  there 
have  been  honourable  and  just  men  in  the  Con- 
gress, who  saw  into  these  machinations,  and 
opposed  them,  but  always  in  vain  ;  and  the  ex- 
ecutive government,  who  perceived  how  irresit- 
ibly  events  were  tending  to  accomplish  the  ab- 
sorption of  all  the  lands  which  had  been  so 
solemnly  guaranteed  to  the  Indians,  could  do  no 
more,  even  if  it  were  otherwise  disposed,  than 
to  modify  the  injustice  which  was  perpetrating, 
by  executing  the  treaties  as  impartially  as  cir- 
cumstances admitted  of.  Every  thing  seemed 
to  concur  to  nourish  the  increasing  passion  of 
^the  Americans  to  appropriate  all  territories  that 
were  contiguous  to  them,  and  to  create  an  ex- 
travagant opinion  in  the  minds  of  the  rising  gen- 
erations, that  there  was  no  moral  impropriety 
in  any  claim  made  by  the  Uuited  States,  as  they 
could  not  by  any  possibility  be  in  the  wrong. 


The  chiefs  of  the  Upper  Creek  nation,  who  im- 
mediately adjoined  the  Americans — the  Judases 
who  had  betrayed  their  country — and  through 
whose  hands  these  annuities  passed,  became 
now,  many  of  them,  as  eager  to  earn  these  pen- 
sions by  the  destruction  of  their  nation,  as  the 
Georgians  were  to  encourage  them  ;  they  bad 
their  own  friends  to  reward,  and  the  fruits  of 
their  treachery  being  soon  dissipated  in  whiskey 
and  personal  indulgences,  their  partisans  became 
clamorous  for  the  means  of  gratifying  their  pro- 
pensities. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Lower  Creeks,  who 
had  not  tasted  so  abundantly  the  sweets  of 
these  treaties  of  peace  and  friendship,  were  be- 
coming more  and  more  estranged  from  the  up- 
per nation  ;  and  when  the  United  States  declared 
war  against  Great  Britain  in  1812,  they  took* op 
arms  against  the  Americans,  and  led  by  Weatk- 
erford—one  of  those  half-breeds  that  are  some- 
times gifted  with  such  a  surprising  degree  of 
eloquence,  courage,  and  resources,  as  raises 
them  at  once  to  be  the  leaders  of  their  nation — 
performed  acts  as  conspicuous  for  their  daring 
as  they  were  for  savage  ferocity.  Amongst 
these  was  the  surprisal  of  Fort  Minims,  a  fort 
built  by  the  United  States  in  the  Creek  territory. 
At  the  head  of  1500  warriors  Weatherford  bold- 
ly attacked  the  fort  at  noonday.  Major  Beasley, 
the  Commandant,  had  a  garrison  in  it  of  275> 
persons,  some  of  whom  were  women  and  chil- 
dren. He  had  been  already  apprised  of  the  ap- 
proach of  Weatherford ;  and  if  he  had  takea 
proper  precautions,  could,  with  about  200  mea 
that  he  had  under  his  command,  have  effectually 
resisted  the  attack.  Despising  his  enemy,  he 
appears  to  have  strangely  neglected  the  safety 
of  the  fort,  which  gave  Weatherford  an  opportu- 
nity of  surprising  it  before  they  had  time  to  close 
the  gates,  at  which  point  a  most  sanguinary  con- 
test took  place  hand  to  hand.  The  Americans 
fought  bravely,  and  disputed  the  entrance  withi 
desperate  valour  :  they  were  however  unable  lo> 
close  the  gates,  and  a  furious  contest  of  sworas^ 
bayonets,  knives,  arid  tomahawks,  at  length  ter- 
minated in  favour  of  the  Indians,  the  brave  Ma- 
jor Beasly  and  his  gallant  brother  officers  being: 
every  one  slain  on  the  spot.  Having  massacred 
the  garrison,  the  Indians  set  fire  to  the  block- 
houses where  the  women  and  children  had  taken. 
refuge,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  few,  burnt 
them  all  up.  Of  the  whole  number  of  275,  only 
17  survived,  some  of  whom  were  severely 
wounded. 

The  news  of  this  disastrous  affair  caused  a 
great  excitement  in  the  states  that  were  conter- 
minous with  the  Indian  territory.  Amongst 
these  was  the  State  of  Tennessee,  which  border- 
ed  upon  the  Cherokee  and  Creek  lands;  and  a» 
this  success  was  considered  to  be  (/.  a  very  uuan- 
gerous  character,  since  it  might  lead  to  a  com- 
bination of  all  the  Indian  tribes,  most  of  whom, 
would  willingly  have  entered  into  a  general  war,, 
it  was  determined  to  oppose  to  Weatherfnrd^ 
man  whose  reputation  for  courage  and  deter- 
mination was  at  that  time  well  established  in  lus 
own  State.  This  man  was  the  now  cHeftratedl 
General  Jackson,  who,  bein<j  highly  pi>pular  in 
Tennessee,  soon  succeeded  in  raising  2000  tight- 
ing  men,  equipped  for  Indian  warfare,  and  burn- 
ing to  retaliate  upon  the  Indians  the  dest ructions 
of  the  garrison  of  Fort  Minims.  General  Jack- 


148 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


son  took  the  field  before  a  regular  commissariat 
could  be  established,  crossed  the  Tennesse 
River,  and  trusting  often  to  casual  supplies 
plunged  into  the  wild  country  drained  by  th 
Black  Warrior  and  Coosa  rivers.  On  his  lei 
were  a  party  of  the  upper  Creeks,  friendly  t 
the  United  States,  under  the  command  of  anoth 
er  famous  half-breed  named  William  M'lntosh 
who,  being  bitterly  opposed  to  Weatherford  ani 
the  lower  Creeks,  sought  every  opportunity  t 
damage  them.  Such  was  the  fury  of  this  mai 
against  his  own  countrymen,  that  at  the  battl 
of  Autossee — a  place  on  the  south  bank  of  thi 
Tallapoosa,  about  twenty  miles  north  of  eas 
from  Montgomery — he  assisted  most  ferociousl) 
in  the  massacre  of  200  wretched  Creeks,  whc 
ware  surprised  in  their  wigwams. 

After  a  great  many  fights  in  which  the  Creek 
were  uniformly  defeated  and  sustained  severe 
losses,  they  were  induced  by  their  prophets  tc 
fortify  themselves  upon  a  neck  of  land  forme 
by  a  great  curve  in  the  Tallapoosa  River,  which 
the  Creeks  call  Tohopeka,  or  Horse-Shoe.  In 
this  desperate  state  of  their  affairs  the  poor  In 
dians  clung  with  more  than  their  accustomed 
confidence  to  the  conjurers  of  their  nation  wh< 
pretended  to  divine  the  future,  and  who  ha( 
assumed  the  title  of  prophets.  They  were  as- 
sured that  this  was  the  place  where  they  were 
to  conquer,  and  at  any  rate  it  was  evident,  from 
what  was  observed  after  the  battle,  that  the  las 
struggle  was  intended  to  be  made  here.  They 
had  fortified  themselves  with  great  ingenuity, 
the  points  of  resistance  afforded  by  the  locality 
were  very  favourable  to  them,  and  having  about 
1000  tried  men,  they  were  not  afraid  of  being 
taken  by  storm. 

Here  Jackson  followed  them.  His  army  had 
repeatedly  mutinied  for  want  of  provisions,  and 
he  only  kepi  it  together  by  sharing  in  an  unosten- 
tatious manner  all  the  privations  of  his  men  ; 
making  no  regular  repasts,  hut  sustaining  him- 
self by  the  grains  of  corn  which  he  carried  in  his 
pocket,  and  which  he  sometimes  offered  to  his 
men  when  they  were  sinking  from  weakness 
and  fatigue.  With  such  an  example  in  the  chief," 
soldiers  with  any  generous  feelings  will  follow 
wherever  he  leads  them.  As  soon  as  he  reach- 
ed the  place  where  the  wretched  Creeks — them- 
selves undergoing  every  sort  of  privation — were 
about  to  play  their  last  stake,  he  attacked  the 
place  with  a  settled  purpose  to  finish  the  war  at 
this  point.  In  his  official  letter  he  says,  "  Deter- 
mined to  exterminate  them,  I  detached  General 
Coffee  with  the  mounted  and  nearly  the  whole 
af  the  Indian  force  early  in  the  morning  of  yes- 
terday 'March  27th>  1814)>  to  cross  the  river 
about  two  miles  below  their  encampment,  and 
to  surround  the  bend  in  such  a  manner  as  that 
none  of  them  skcvld  escape  by  attempting  to  cross 
the  river."  The  piaOe.  after  a  severe  contest  of 
five  hours,  was  stormed,  and  the  Americans  en- 
tered it.  Five  hundred  and  fifty-seven  Indians 
were  slain  on  the  bend,  and  many  others  who 
attempted  to  cross  the  Tallapoosa  were  sabred 
by  the  horsemen:  but  to  pursue  the  official 
letter— "  The  fighting  continued  with  some  se- 
verity about  five  hours,  but  we  continued  to 
destroy  many  of  them  who  had  concealed  them- 
selves under  the  banks  of  the  river  until  we 
were  prevented  by  night.  This  morning  we  kill- 
ed sixteen  who  laid  been  concealed.  We  took  about 


I  250  prisoners,  all  women  and  children,  except 
two  or  three.  Our  loss  is  106  wounded,  and  25 
killed.  Major  M'Intosh,  the  Cowetau,  who 
joined  my  army  with  a  part  of  his  tribe,  greatly 
distinguished  himself." 

If  it  had  been  a  den  of  rattlesnakes  their  de- 
struction could  not  have  been  accomplished  or 
related  in  a  more  energetic  manner. 

Some  of  the  Creeks  now  fled  to  Florida,  and 
others  into  the  Cherokee  country,  whilst  Weath- 
erford and  the  few  Indians  adhered  to  him,  were 
hunted  into  the  swamps,  and  hemmed  in  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  be  reduced  to  the  last  extremity, 
feeding  upon  the  roots  and  the  barks  of  trees 
until  famine  and  disease  rapidly  diminished  their 
numbers.  In  the  meantime  Jackson  had  re- 
quired of  the  Indians  who  adhered  to  the  Amer- 
icans to  cause  that  chief  to  be  delivered*  bound 
to  him  to  undergo  his  fate.  Weatherford  soon 
received  information  of  this,  and  unable  any 
longer  to  endure  the  misery  of  his  followers,  and 
determined  not  to  submit  to  the  indignity  of  be- 
ing bound,  he  resolved  upon  a  step  that  marks 
the  elevation  of  his  character,  and  that  produced 
consequences  that  reflect  great  honour  even  up- 
on the  successful  American  general. 

It  happened  to  me  many  years  ago  to  hear 
the  relation  of  what  took  place  from  an  eye- wit- 
ness of  the  first  interview  which  Weatherford 
had  with  his  conqueror. 

Jackson  was  one  day  in  his  tent  with  some 
of  his  officers,  when  an  Indian  was  seen  on 
horseback  galloping  into  the  encampment,  and 
who  did  not  stop  until  he  reached  the  General's 
tent.  Throwing  himself  from  his  horse,  he  en- 
tered the  tent  boldly,  and  in  a  moment  stood 
before  the  commander-in-chief.  The  Indian 
was  tall  and  well-proportioned,  his  countenance 
ndicated  great  intelligence,  and  was  distinguish- 
ed by"  that  particular  beauty  which  is  sometimes 
;iven  i>y  a  thin  aquiline  nose.  His  person  was 
squalid  and  emaciated,  his  dress  dirty  and  rag- 
ged, but  K'is  brilliant  and  still  fierce  black  eyes 
bowed  at  once  that  he  was  no  common  man. 
Addressing  himself  to  Jackson,  he  instantly  be- 
gan to  this  eifect : — 

"  I  am  Wea  therford  ;  I  fought  you  as  long  as 
could  ;  I  can  fight  no  longer  ;  my  people  are 
ying  in  the  swa  mp.  Do  with  m»  as  you  please  ; 
give  myself  up.  I  know  you  are  a  brave  man  ; 
ave  pity  on  my  pt10Ple-  Let  them  have  some- 
hingtoeat;  send  a  good  talk  to  them;  they 
will  do  what  you  wist'-  Here  I  am." 

The  inexorable  temper  of  Jackson  was  soft- 
ned  by  the  abject  cond.  ^ion  of  the  fallen  chief, 
nd  his  generosity  awakt  'ned  by  this  heroic  con- 
uct:  he  spoke  kindly  to  \Veatherford,  and  bade 
im  be  comforted,  declaring  with  warmth  that 
o  man  should  hurt  a  hair  of  his  head,  and  that 
the  Indians  would  submit,  b  e  would  take  care 
fthem  and  give  them  peace.  Thus  did  this 
enerous  step,  which  could  only  have  been  su-g- 
ested  by  a  lofty  mind,  produce  th>e  happiest  ef- 
;cts. 

The  Creeks  had  now  received  a  fatal  blovr 
oth  to  their  power  and  their  pride.  "They  were 
t  the  mercy  of  their  conquerors,  and  ot.i  the  9th 
f  August,  1814,  signed  articles  of  "  Agreement 
nd  Capitulation"  with  the  successful  General  at 
'ort  Jackson.  These  articles  began  as  follow.s : — 
"  Whereas  an  unprovoked,  inhuman,  and  san- 
uinary  war,  waged  by  the  hostile  Creeks  against 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


149 


the  United  States,  hath  been  repelled,  prosecu- 
ted, and  determined  successfully  on  the  part  of 
the  said  States,  in  conformity  vrith  principles  of 
national  justice  and  honourable  warfare,"  &c. 

By  this  treaty  the  Creeks  ceded  every  part 
of  the  territory  that  was  required  of  them.  All 
the  upper  part  of  the  Coosa  country  was  surren- 
dered, and  that  river  as  far  as  Wetumpka  be- 
came their  boundary.  Within  the  space  of 
twenty-four  years  the  Creeks  had  now  surren- 
dered—with a  few  local  exceptions — all  that 
portion  of  their  native  country  extending  from 
the  Coosa  eastward  to  the  Savannah  ;  compre- 
hending about  250  miles  in  breadth  of  the  finest 
land  in  the  United  States.  But  a  fine  territory 
was  still  left  to  them,  and  if  there  was  any  virtue 
in  words,  the  United  States  were  bound  by  the 
following  article  in  the  treaty  to  protect  them 
in  its  possession  : — 

"Art.  2.  The  United  States  will  guarantee 
to  the  Creek  nation  the  integrity  of  all  their  ter- 
ritory eastwardly  and  northwardly  of  the  said 
line,  to  be  run  and  described  as  mentioned  in 
the  first  article." 

Further  concessions,  however,  were  made  by 
the  treaty  of  January  22,  1818,  in  consideration 
of  the  United  States  paying  the  sum  of  120,000 
dollars,  in  certain  instalments;  and  on  the  8th 
of  January,  1821,  a  subsequent  treaty  of  cession 
took  place  for  other  valuable  considerations. 

William  M'Intosh,  the  half  breed,  who  had 
contributed  so  effectually  to  the  destruction  of 
his  countrymen,  the  lower  Creeks,  was  now  the 
leading  Sachem,  and  was  the  chief  under  whose 
management  these  treaties  of  cession  were  made. 
Emboldened  by  his  success,  and  urged  on  by  the 
speculators  who  were  still  watching  for  oppor- 
tunities to  despoil  the  nation  of  everything,  he 
now  ventured  upon  a  proceeding  which  roused 
the  lower  Creeks  from  their  apathy,  and  signed 
a  convention,  February  12,  1825,  with  certain 
American  commissioners  who  were  Georgians, 
in  which  it  was  provided  that  a  further  impor- 
tant cession  should  be  made  to  the  United  States, 
for  which  the  parties  interested  were  to  be  com- 
pensated in  the  following  manner.  They  were 
to  receive  acre  for  acre  upon  the  Arkansas  Riv- 
er, west  of  the  Mississippi,  upon  condition  of 
their  emigrating  to  that  country,  and  were  be- 
sides to  be  paid  a  sum  amounting  to  four  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  in  money,  to  compensate 
them  for  their  losses  in  removing  from  their  na- 
tive country  and  to  enable  them  "  to  obtain  sup- 
plies in  their  new  settlement." 

The  Creeks  had  submitted  with  impatient  re- 
luctance to  the  previous  cession  made  by  M'In- 
tosh, but  this,  which  expatriated  a  great  portion 
of  them  into  the  bargain,  was  intolerable.  In 
vain  had  the  chiefs  told  the  American  commis- 
sioners, at  a  council  to  which  they  were  sum- 
moned, "  We  have  no  land  to  sell.  M'Intosh 
knows  that  no  part  of  the  land  can  be  sold  with- 
out a  full  council,  and  with  the  consent  of  all 
the  nation  ;  and  if  a  part  of  the  nation  choose 
to  leave  the  country,  they  cannot  sell  the  land 
they  have,  but  it  belongs  to  the  nation."  A 
deaf  ear  was  turned  to  this,  and  M'Intosh, 
tempted  by  the  personal  advantages  that  were 
to  be  secured  to  him,  and  believing  that  the 
United  States  government  would  carry  out  the 
execution  of  the  treaty,  signed  the  document, 
with  a  few  of  the  chiefs  connected  with  him, 


I  whilst  thirty-six  of  them,  present  at  the  coun- 
'  cil,  refused  to  put  their  marks  to  it.  Many  of 
the  chiefs  now  openly  denounced  him  ;  and  let- 
ters he  had  written  to  some  of  the  half-breeds, 
offering  to  bribe  them  with  part  of  the  money 
he  was  to  receive  from  the  American  commis- 
sioners, being  produced  at  a  subsequent  council, 
his  treachery  to  the  nation  was  apparent  to 
every  one.  Perceiving  that  a  great  majority  of 
the  Creeks  were  inclined  against  him,  M'Intosh 
repaired  to  the  State  of  Georgia,  where  his 
abettors  were,  and  claimed  the  protection  of  the 
governor.  Having  been  assured  that  he  should 
receive  it,  he  retgrned  to  his  house,  on  the 
Chatahoochie,  w&gje  two  of  his  wives  lived, 
and  where  some  Americans  and  sub-chiefs  of 
his  own  party  soon  joined  him.  While  here, 
relying  upon  the  powerful  protection  of  Gover- 
nor Troup  of  Georgia,  Menaw-way,  a  chief  of 
the  lower  country,  accompanied  by  a  very  large 
party  of  armed  Oakfuskee  warriors,  suddenly 
surrounded  the  house  on  Sunday  morning  the 
1st  of  May,  about  two  hours  before  daylight. 
As  soon  as  day  broke  he  sent  an  interpreter  to 
inform  the  white  people  in  the  house  that  they 
and  the  women  and  children  must  instantly 
leave  it ;  that  it  was  not  his  intention  to  hurt 
them,  but  that  General  M'Intosh  having  broken 
the  law  of  the  nation,  they  intended  to  execute 
him  immediately.  All  now  left  the  house  but 
M'Intosh  and  one  Tustenugge,  who  was  his 
principal  confederate  in  executing  the  obnoxious 
treaties.  Menaw-way,  who  seemed  determin- 
ed to  hold  no  conversation  with  the  delinquent 
chiefs,  now  directed  his  warriors  to  set  fire  to 
the  house ;  and  the  inmates,  making  a  despe- 
rate sally  from  the  door  to  escape  being  burnt 
alive,  were  both  shot  dead. 

The  governor  of  Georgia,  incensed  at  this  exe- 
cution of  his  proteges,  breathed  nothing  but  ven- 
geance against  their  enemies,  who,  probably, 
but  for  the  wise  and  humane  view  which  the 
federal  government  (then  administered  by  Pres- 
ident Adams)  took  of  the  causes  which  had  led 
to  this  characteristic  and  summary  proceeding, 
would  have  had  to  undergo  new  persecutions 
from  their  white  neighbours.  The  President 
not  only  used  his  authority  upon  this  occasion 
to  protect  the  Indians  from  further  injury,  but 
entered  into  a  treaty  with  them  on  24th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1826,  whereby  the  last  convention  signed 
by  M'Intosh  was  declared  null  and  void.  This 
treaty  contained  also  a  cession  of  some  lands,  to 
make  it  acceptable  to  the  Georgians,  for  which 
sum  of  217,600  dollars  was  to  be  paid  to 
the  chiefs  and  warriors,  as  well  as  an  additional 
jerpetual  annuity  of  20,000  dollars.  The  inter- 
ests also  of  the  friends  of  M'Intosh  were  provided 
for ;  they  were  to  emigrate  to  the  west  side  of 
he  Mississippi — an  arrangement  which  met 
;heir  approbation — and  were  to  be  liberally  pro- 
rided  for,  and  to  be  under  the  protection  of  the 
Jnited  States.  This  treaty,  which  was  no 
doubt  made  in  a  spirit  of  fairness  to  the  Indians, 
ilso  contained  the  usual  guarantee  to  all  the 
ands  "  not  herein  ceded,  to  which  they  have  a 
ust  claim."  A  further  treaty  of  cession,  how- 
ever, was  entered  into  on  the  25th  of  November, 
.827,  for  the  purpose  of  quieting,  some  titles  in 
he  "chartered  limits  of  Georgia,"  the  sum  of 
42,000  dollars  being  the  consideration  paid  bv 
he  United  States. 


150 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


The  last  treaty  of  cession  was  made  on  the 
24th  of  March,  1832,  when  the  government  of 
the  United  States  was  administered  by  Presi- 
dent Jackson,  the  person  who  had  given  the 
Creeks  such  a  fatal  blow  in  1814.  The  treaty 
commenced  in  the  following  significant  words : 

"  Art.  1.  The  Creek  tribe'  of  Indians  cede  to 
the  United  States  all  their  land  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi river." 

Thus  was  extinguished  the  title  of  the  Mus- 
kogee  people  to  every  foot  of  land  comprehended 
in  their  ancient  territory,  consisting  of  about 
twenty-five  millions  of  acres  of  fertile  land,  all 
of  which  had  been  now  ceded  in  a  little  more 
than  forty  years  to  the  white  population  of  the 
adjacent  States. 

The  speculators  had  now  effected  their  great 
object  of  despoiling  the  Creeks  of  their  native 
country.  Ostensibly,  the  treaty  provided  for  the 
interests  of  the  Indians,  but,  substantially,  it -was 
a  provision  for  their  plunderers.  Ninety  of  the 
principal  chiefs  were  to  have  one  section  *  of 
land  each,  as  soon  as  the  survey  of  the  land  had 
been  effected  by  the  United  States  ;  and  every 
head  of  a  Creek  family  was  also  to  have  a  half 
section.  Those  who  consented  to  emigrate  and 
join  their  countrymen  west  of  the  Mississippi 
•were  to  be  removed  at  the  expense  of  the  Amer- 
ican government,  and  to  be  subsisted  by  it  one 
year  after  their  arrival  there.  To  the  specula- 
tors the  most  interesting  portion  of  the  treaty 
•was  contained  in  the  following  words  : 

"Art.  3.  The  tracts  [those  provided  for  the 
chiefs  and  heads  of  families]  may  be  conveyed 
by  the  persons  selecting  the  same  to  any  other 
persons,  for  a  fair  consideration,  in  such  manner 
as  the  President  may  direct." 

Now  these  chiefs  and  heads  of  families,  thus 
to  be  provided  for,  were  illiterate,  wretched 
beings,  broken  down  in  spirit  by  the  ruin  of  their 
nation,  and  most  of  them  addicted  to  excessive 
drunkenness.  There  was  not  a  part  of  the  terri- 
tory where  white  men  were  not  to  be  found 
•vending  whiskey  to  the  poor  Indians  on  credit ; 
so  that  at -the  time  this  treaty  was  made  they 
•were  all  deeply  indebted  ;  or  if  any  of  them  had 
had  but  slight  dealings  with  these  men,  being 
entirely  illiterate,  they  neither  knew  how  to 
keep  an  account  of  their  transactions,  nor  what 
the  nature  of  the  paper  was  which  they  had  been 
induced  to  sign  before  witnesses  on  coming  to  a 
settlement. 

So  degraded  and  miserable  was  their  condi- 
tion, that  almost  any  of  them  could  be  brought 
to  sign  any  thing  when  sufficiently  excited  by 
•whiskey  ;  and  although  the  third  article  pro- 
vided that  the  conveyance  of  their  lands  to 
•  others  should  be  made  under  the  direction  of 
the  President,  yet  he  could  do  no  more  than 
delegate  agents  to  inquire  into  the  transactions 
of  the  Indians  and  their  white  creditors,  which 
agents  were  always  presumed  to  be  favourable 
to  these  last,  and  to  be  easily"  satisfied  of  the 
•"  fair  consideration"  that  had  been  given.  Sub- 
stantially, therefore,  this  treaty  was  a  liquida- 
tion of  accounts  betwixt  them  and  their  credi- 
tors, and  transferred  to  these  last  the  lands 
•which  it  ostensibly  assigned  to  the  Indians  : 
indeed  if  any  of  them  had  even  succeeded  in 
retaining  possession  of  their  sections,  it  was 

*  640  acres. 


evident,  that  under  such  a  state  of  things  it  was 
impossible  for  isolated  individuals  to  live  amongst 
the  white  men  that  were  now  about  to  pour  in 
amongst  them :  they  could  follow  the  chase  no 
longer,  all  their  occupations  were  at  an  end, 
and  nothing  would  soon  be  left  for  them  but 
acts  of  violence  and  drunkenness,  until  disease 
should  destroy  them,  or  until  they  should  be 
forcibly  removed  from  the  country.  Such  was 
the  situation,  and  such  the  future  prospects,  of 
the  remains  of  the  great  Muskogee  people  at 
the  ratification  of  this  treaty. 

It  is  due,  however,  to  truth  to  say  that  there 
had  never  been  wanting  virtuous  and  excellent 
persons  in  other  parts  of  the  United  States  to 
inveigh  loudly  against  the  whole  system  of  pro- 
ceedings by  which  such  an  atrocious  spoliation 
was  consummated.  Nearer  to  the  scene  of 
action  a  more  moderate  degree  of  disapproba- 
tion was  sometimes  expressed,  and  it  was  not 
unusual  to  hear  a  qualified  apology  for  these 
transactions  from  sensible  and  respectable  per- 
sons, who  would  shrink  from  committing  acts 
of  injustice  and  inhumanity  themselves ;  and 
who  observed  that,  however  criminal  such  pro- 
ceedings might  appear,  the  removal  of  Indians 
from  their  lands  did  not  attach  as  a  crime  to 
the  nation  that  removed  them  ;  for  where  the 
white  population  increased  so  rapidly,  the  neces- 
sity of  their  removal  became  unavoidable  ;  and 
the  act,  therefore,  being  involuntary,  could  not 
be  a  crime. 

If  a  contrast  were  to  be  drawn  between  the 
intrinsic  importance  to  the  world,  of  a  nation  of 
aboriginal  savages  and  a  community  of  civilised 
and  religious  white  people,  all  men  would  prob- 
ably be  found  to  agree  which  of  the  two  should 
be  preserved,  even  if  it  involved  the  destruction 
of  the  other.  In  the  eyes  of  the  educated  white 
man,  the  life  of  the  Indian  is  divested  of  every 
rational  comfort,  that  could  encourage  him  to 
hope  he  could  ever  be  reconciled  to  it.  It  is  a 
mere  animal  life,  without  religion,  and  without 
any  law  except  the  law  of  revenge.  Restrained 
neither  by  education  nor  example,  passion  alone 
rules,  and  war  and  the  chase  become  his  sole 
occupations.  His  children  pursue  the  savage 
customs  of  their  forefathers  ;  and  as  they  in- 
crease in  numbers,  only  extend  the  deadly  spec- 
tacle of  whole  nations  living  and  dying  without 
the  desire  of  knowledge. 

With  a  well-trained  white  man,  every  thing 
is  in  a  state  of  religious  and  moral  progression. 
Education  engrafts  the  desire  of  knowledge  in 
his  young  mind,  and  renders  its  acquisition  cer- 
tain. His  labour,  successfully  applied  in  one 
direction,  opens  other  avenues  to  him  still  more 
profitable,  and  leads  to  the  development  of  every 
recourse  of  human  talent  and  ingenuity.  He 
abounds  in  the  substantial  comforts  of  life,  and 
is  the  friend  of  peace  and  law,  knowing  that 
they  alone  furnish  a  secure  protection  to  the  fu- 
ture enjoyment  by  his  generations  of  the  proper- 
ty he  has  acquired  by  his  own  honourable  la- 
bours. We  may  believe,  therefore,  that  men 
who  thus,  by  their  sobriety,  industry,  fidelity, 
and  integrity  in  social  life,  exemplify  a  con- 
sciousness of  their  responsibility  to  their  Crea- 
tor, are,  whilst  extending  their  generations, 
worthily  pursuing  the  true  purposes  of  their  ex- 
istence, and  are  qualifying  themselves  for  a  more 
perfect  state  of  enjoyment  herealter,  such,  per- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


151 


haps,  as  we  can  hardly  conceive  the  mere  ani- 
mal Indian  to  be  capable  of  aspiring  to.  This 
contrast,  however,  if  it  is  not  altogether  theo 
retical,  is  not  by  any  means  applicable  to  the 
people  of  Georgia.  They,  at  any  rate,  were  not 
under  the  necessity  of  expelling  the  Creeks  to 
make  room  for  an  increasing  virtuous  popula- 
tion :  their  proceedings  had  been  at  all  times 
marked  by  fraud  and  violence,  against  which 
their  victims  had  in  vain  looked  up  for  protec- 
tion to  the  federal  government. — a  protection  it 
was  bound  upon  every  consideration,  divine  and 
human,  to  have  given  them,  and  which,  per- 
haps, it  was  alone  restrained  from  doing  by  sor- 
did political  management.  If  the  federal  gov- 
ernment could  not  have  done  every  thing  the 
Creeks  could  fairly  claim  under  its  repeated  so- 
lemn guarantees, -there  was  still  something  left 
in  its  power.  Having  repeatedly  treated  with 
them  as  an  independent  people  under  their  pro- 
tection, it  was  bound  to  give  them  a  domestic 
government,  to  have  provided  for  their  conver- 
sion to  Christianity,  and  to  have  afforded  them 
every  facility  of  becoming  cultivators,  and  form- 
ing themselves  into  contented  communities,  as 
some  of  the  Choctaws  and  Cherokees  are  at  this 
day. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

The  ruins  of  a  Nation — Kateebee  Swamp — A  Turkey  im- 
plumis— Emigrants  with  their  Slaves— Phlebotomy- 
Diamond  Rattle  Snakes— Reach  Columbus,  in  Georgia 
—Falls  of  the  Chatahoochie— Leave  Columbus— Ob- 
servations upon  the  Family  of  Naiades— Arrive  at  Au- 
gusta— Railroad  to  Charleston,  in  South  Carolina — 
Reach  Columbia,  in  South  Carolina. 

WITH  these  events,  as  they  are  just  sketched, 
uppermost  in  my  mind,  I  now  entered  the  Creek 
territory.  The  lands  had  been  surveyed,  the 
chiefs  who  had  deluded  the  nation  into  the 
treaty  had  been  well  provided  for,  and  the  rest, 
•with  very  few  exceptions,  had  transferred  their 
rights  to  white  men.  I  was  now  to  be  a  wit- 
ness, not  of  the  ruins  of  a  Palmyra  or  a  Baby- 
lon, but  of  a  nation  of  famous  warriors  degraded 
to  the  lowest  pitch  of  drunkenness  and  despair, 
and  surrounded  in  every  direction  by  the  least 
industrious  and  most  dissolute  white  men  on  the 
continent  of  America. 

Everything  as  we  advanced  was  Indian,  the 
road  was  crooked,  bad,  and  made  without  any 
system,  and  by  its  side  occasional  ragged-look- 
ing pieces  of  ground,  badly  cleared  up,  on  which 
were  built  miserable-looking  cabins  without  any 
fences  near  them.  We  had  not  been  half  an 
hour  in  the  territory  before  we  came  to  a  filthy 
cabin  where  a  villanous-looking  white  man  sold 
tobacco  and  whiskey.  A  stream  was  running 
close  by,  and  at  the  door  of  the  cabin  three 
other  brutal-looking  whites  were  standing  with 
this  man,  all  engaged  in  making  game  of  a  fine 
tall  Indian,  about  forty-five  years  old,  who  was 
remarkably  well  made.  He  was  excessively 
drunk,  and  was  staggering  about  stark  naked 
and  vociferating  in  an  unintelligible  manner, 
whilst  the  foam  from  his  mouth  was  falling  on 
his  prominent  breast.  These  fellows  were  pro- 
mising him  another  drink  if  he  would  jump  into 
the  stream,  but  although  they  had  persuaded  him 
to  strip,  the  morning  was  so  cold  and  the  water 
— on  account  of  the  late  rains — so  high,  that  he 


seemed  to  have  sense  enough  left  not  to  go  any 
farther.  We  left  the  place  thoroughly  disgust- 
ed, but  I  have  no  doubt  they  prevailed  upon  him 
at  length,  for  the  Indian,  when  tipsy,  is  outra- 
geous for  more  liquor  until  he  becomes  dead 
drunk;  and  the  men  told  us  that  he  had  olten 
done  it  before.  Our  road  was  indescribably  bad, 
going  over  beds  of  black  waxy  plastic  clay,  of 
the  consistency  of  that  on  the  small  prairies  in 
Arkansas,  and  entirely  cut  up  by  the  immense 
number  of  waggons  containing  families  that 
were  emigrating  from  South  Carolina  to  Alaba- 
ma. Being  on  foot,  and  always  a-head  of  the 
carriage,  I  used  to  enter  the  Indian  cabins  I 
came  up  with,  and  enter  into  conversation  with 
those  of  the  people  who  could  speak  a  little 
English.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  dirt  and 
stench  of  these  places.  In  one  of  them  I  stop- 
ped half  an  hour,  and  saw  breakfast  cooked  for 
some  Indian  women  by  a  negress  who  was  the:r 
slave  ;  it  consisted  of  some  rotten-looking  meat, 
and  her  manner  of  cooking  it,  in  a  dirty  pan 
which  seemed  never  to  have  been  cleaned,  was 
something  quite  shocking. 

On  reaching  the  Kateebee  swamp  we  found 
the  bridge  of  logs,  which  extended  about  a  mile, 
quite  dislocated  with  the  incessant  passage  of 
waggons  and  the  rise  of  the  waters.  A  file  of 
them  had  just  passed  it  with  great  difficu'ty, 
and  on  taking  a  look  at  the  numerous  holes  made 
in  it,  some  of  which  were  four  feet  deep,  I  de- 
spaired of  getting  our  vehicle  over.  A  person 
on  horseback,  who  was  accompanying  one  of 
the  waggons,  and  with  whom  I  had  entered  into 
conversation,  very  kindly  lent  me  his  horse  to 
cross  the  swamp  with,  and  gave  me  directions 
how  to  proceed  ;  by  observing  these  I  succeed- 
ed, after  a  hard  struggle ;  and  on  reaching  the 
other  end,  where  were  some  more  waggons,  I 
sent  the  horse  back  to  him  by  a  negro  slave  be- 
longing to  one  of  them. 

Almost  the  whole  of  the  bridge  was  under 
water,  and  in  one  part  of  it  the  structure  had 
been  quite  broken  up  for  a  distance  of  at  least 
200  yards,  the  horse  treading  fearfully  amongst 
the  logs,  some  of  which  were  floating  and  some 
sticking  in  the  mud,  not  a  little  puzzled  how  to 
get  out  of  these  chasms  after  I  had  forced  him. 
into  them. 

From  hence  I  proceeded  on  foot  to  Walton's, 
a  house  of  entertainment,  where  the  carriage 
finally  overtook  me,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of 
Mr.  T********,  who  considered  the  log-bridge, 
when  he  got  upon  it,  as  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  his 
travels  in  this  direction  ;  but  the  driver  was  ac- 
customed to  scenes  of  this  kind,  and  telling  him 
to  sit  still,  at  length  extricated  him.  At  this 
house  I  met  two  ladies,  both  of  them  very  gen- 
teel persons,  on  their  way  from  Charlestown,  in 
South  Carolina,  to  Mobile  :  one  of  them  was  a 
Mrs.  H*****,  and  the  other  was  a  Mrs.  B****, 
her  niece,  an  extremely  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing young  person,  who  had  lately  been  left  a 
widow.  Having  heard  unpromising  accounts 
of  the  Kateebee  Swamp,  they  had  stopped  here 
to  get  information  from  some  one  who  had 
crossed  it.  We  took  a  late  repast  together,  and 
I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  felt  more  sympathy 
for  any  individuals  than  for  these  amiable  wo- 
men, who  were  travelling  through  such  an  in- 
hospitable country  at  this  unpropitious  season, 
with  no  attendants  but  a  boy  and  a  negro  who 


152 


TRAVELS   IN  AMERICA. 


drove  their  carriage.  On  parting  I  gave  him  in- 
structions how  to  proceed,  and  was  glad  to  find 
he  was  an  intelligent  and  careful  man.  As  to 
his  fair  charge,  they  were  both  resolutely  bent 
upon  making  the  best  of  everything,  and  were 
prepared  to  meet  events  in  that  admirable  spirit 
which  frequently  characterises  the  sex  upon 
perilous  occasions. 

Everything  as  we  advanced  into  the  Creek 
country  announced  the  total  dissolution  of  or- 
der. Indians  of  all  ages  were  wandering  about 
listlessly,  the  poorest  of  them  having  taken  to 
begging,  and  when  we  came  in  sight  would 
come  and  importune  us  for  money.  Some  of 
them,  imitating  the  whites,  were  doing  their 
best  to  prey  upon  each  other,  for  we  frequently 
saw  squaws  belonging  to  some  of  the  chiefs 
seated  by  the  roadside  at  a  log  or  rude  table 
with  a  bottle  of  whiskey,  and  a  glass  to  supply 
their  unfortunate  countrymen  who  had  anything 
to  give  in  return,  if  it  were  only  the  skin  of  an 
animal.  These  women  seemed  to  laugh  at  the 
distresses  of  the  others,  and  gave  us  a  great 
deal  of  their  eloquence  when  we  passed  them, 
but  fortunately  we  did  not  understand  what  they 
said,  though  by  their  lifting  up  the  whiskey  bot- 
tle it  was  evident  they  wanted  to  make  some- 
thing out  of  us  also.  In  other  places  we  met 
young  men  in  the  flower  of  their  age,  dressed  in 
ragged  hunting-shirts  and  turbans,  staggering 
along,  and  often  falling  to  the  ground,  with  emp- 
ty bottles  in  their  hands  :  in  this  wretched  state 
of  things,  with  the  game  almost  entirely  destroy- 
ed, it  is  evident  that  nothing  will  soon  be  left  to 
those  who  have  beggared  themselves  but  to  die 
of  want,  or  to  emigrate,  a  step  they  are  so  very 
averse  to  take,  that  in  their  desperation  they 
have  already  committed  some  murders. 

The  jurisdiction  of  this  part  of  the  territory 
had  now  passed  over  from  the  United  States  to 
the  State  of  Alabama,  which  not  having  yet 
commenced  its  exercise,  the  Indians  did  just  as 
they  pleased.  One  of  them  lately  shot  a  sort 
of  itinerant  preacher,  named  Davis,  with  whom 
he  had  had  some  dealings,  and  afterwards  came 
to  Walton's  and  said  he  was  very  sorry,  but  he 
thought  it  was  a  wild  turkey  he  had  fired  at. 
This  no  doubt  was  a  piece  of  Indian  wit,  and 
meant  not  that  he  was  sorry  for  what  he  had 
done,  but  that  he  was  sorry  it  was  not  a  wild 
turkey  he  had  shot.  The  few  white  families 
who  have  established  themselves  on  the  road 
were  beginning,  and  with  reason,  to  be  alarmed 
at  their  situation,  for  it  would  require  very  little 
combination  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  to  mas- 
sacre them  all  in  one  night. 

At  the  Persimmon  Creek  and  Swamp  we  met 
with  another  broken-down  log-bridge  that  was 
dangerous  in  some  places ;  but  several  Indians 
who  were  here  behaved  very  well,  giving  us 
most  effectual  assistance  in  getting  the  carriage 
across,  for  which  we  paid  them  liberally.  From 
hence  we  proceeded  to  one  Macgirt's  a  white 
man,  living  in  a  filthy,  Indian-looking  place,  who 
pretended  to  give  us  some  breakfast,  but  it  was 
so  disgustingly  bad  that  we  were  unable  to  touch 
it.  This  man  said  he  expected  every  night  to 
have  his  throat  cut,  which  induced  me  to  tell 
him,  that  if  it  would  be  any  consolation,  he 
might  be  quite  sure  they  would  not  touch  his 
victuals.  We  now  got  upon  an  excessively  bad 
road,  so  cut  up  that  the  horses  could  hardly  drag 


the  carriage  through  the  deep  ruts,  and  the  soil 
being  of  the  red,  waxy  kind,  we  found  it  almost 
as  difficult  to  walk  upon  it.  In  the  course  of 
the  day  we  met  a  great  many  families  of  plant- 
ers emigrating  to  Alabama  and  Mississippi  to 
take  up  cotton  plantations,  their  slaves  tramping 
through  the  waxy  ground  on  foot,  and  the  heavy 
waggons  containing  the  black  women  and  chil- 
dren slowly  dragging  on,  and  frequently  break- 

g  down.  All  that  were  able  were  obliged  to 
walk,  and  being  wet  with  fording  the  streams 
were  shivering  with  cold.  The  negroes  suffer 
ery  much  in  these  expeditions  conducted  in 
the  winter  season,  and  upon  this  occasion  must 
have  been  constantly  wet,  for  I  am  sure  we  ford- 
ed from  forty  to  fifty  streams  this  day,  which, 
although  insignificant  in  dry  weather,  were  at 
this  time  very  much  swollen  with  rain.  We 
passed  at  least  1000  negro  slaves,  all  trudging 
on  foot,  and  worn  down  with  fatigue. 

The  Indian  cabins,  as  we  advanced,  were 
somewhat  different  from  those  we  observed  on 
entering  the  territory,  being  merely  circular 
spaces  covered  with  bark,  and  apparently  ex- 
posed to  all  the  rains  :  on  examining  them,  how- 
ever, 1  found  that  a  small  trench  was  dug  round 
them  which  prevented  the  superficial  water  get- 
ting in,  and  that  the  bark  was  lapped  over  so 
well  that  it  kept  all  the  rain  out.  But  no  lan- 
guage can  describe  the  filth  in&ide  of  them,  and 
the  disgusting  appearance  of  their  tenants,  espe- 
cially the  old  crones.  The  women  seemed  to  be 
fond  of  being  bled,  for  in  one  of  the  largest  cab- 
ins a  young  man  had  been  bleeding  several  of 
them  with  a  rude  lancet.  Amongst  the  rest 
was  an  old  creature  turned  sixty,  the  most 
thoroughly  hideous,  wrinkled,  dark,  and  dirty 
hag  I  had  ever  seen  amongst  them  :  she  had 
the  features  and  hair  of  an  Alecto,  and  was 
completely  stark  naked. 

We  made  only  twenty-five  miles  this  day, 
and  arrived  after  dark  excessively  fatigued  at 
one  Cook's,  a  cheerful,  dissipated  sort  of  fellow; 
whose  wife,  however,  being  a  very  respectable 
woman,  gave  us  a  tolerable  clean  supper  and 
separate  beds.  In  the  morning  I  found  that 
Mr.  Cook  was  a  collector  of  natural  curiosities, 
the  stuffed  skins  of  three  extraordinarily  thick 
Diamond  rattlesnakes  being  hung  up  in  the  porch, 
of  his  little  tavern,  one  of  which  was  seven  feet 
ten  inches  long,  and  thirteen  inches  and  a  quar- 
ter in  circumference.  He  said  that  great  num- 
bers of  these  enormous  snakes,  which  I  believe 
have  not  yet  been  described,  were  found  in  the 
pine  lands  of  this  part  of  the  Creek  nation. 
There  is  also  some  limestone  near  his  house,  in 
which  I  observed  imperfect  specimens  of  Gry- 
phaea  vesiculosa.  From  hence  we  got  into  a 
very  pretty  sandy  district,  and  found  a  tolerably 
good  road  on  the  sand  ridges.  Streams,  whose 
banks  were  covered  with  laurels,  live  oaks,  and 
other  evergreens,  were  running  pleasingly  at  the 
base  of  graceful  pine  hills,  which  overlaid  a  rot- 
ten limestone,  and  wild  grass  was  growing  ev- 
ery where  in  great  profusion.  This  day  we 
met  an  almost  uninterrupted  line  of  emigrants, 
with  innumerable  heavy  and  light  waggons. 
Some  of  them  had  got  stuck  fast  in  the  deep 
bottoms,  and  the  men  around  them  were  pulling, 
hauling,  whipping,  and  cursing  and  swearing  to 
get  them  out ;  there  were  also  some  lighter 
carriages,  indicating  a  better  class  of  emigrants. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


153 


Amongst  the  rest  was  an  old-fashioned  gig, 
with  a  lame  horse  guided  by  an  aged  grand- 
mother, with  several  white  and  black  children 
stuck  in  it  around  her.  The  whole  scene  would 
have  reminded  me  of  the  emigrations  in  patriar- 
chal times,  but  for  the  very  decided  style  of  the 
cursing  and  swearing.  As  we  advanced  they 
all  inquired  if  the  road  was  not  better  a-head ; 
and  our  answer  generally  was,  "  Keep  up  your 
spirits  and  you'll  get  through."  At  one  time 
of  the  day  we  certainly  passed  1200  people, 
black  and  white,  on  foot.  We  found  very  few 
Indians  in  this  part  of  the  territory — a  circum- 
stance I  was  glad  of,  as  the  spectacle  they  fur- 
nished was  always  a  distressing  one  ;  and  oc- 
casionally some  of  the  young  men,  who  were 
rather  drunk,  had  been  very  insolent  to  us. 

About  eight  miles  before  we  reached  the  Cha- 
tahoochie  we  met  boulders  of  gneiss  and  quartz, 
always  an  indication,  in  this  part  of  North 
America,  of  the  limits  of  the  subcretaceous  and 
tertiary  beds.  In  the  afternoon  we  reached  the 
Chatahoochie,  it  having  taken  us  four  days  to 
travel  a  distance  of  ninety  miles.  This  fine 
stream  is  crossed  by  an  excellent  bridge,  and 
divides  the  state  of  Georgia  from  the  Creek  ter- 
ritory now  forming  part  of  Alabama.  On  the 
opposite  bank  is  the  pretty  town  of  Columbus, 
in  Georgia,  where  we  stopped  for  the  night  at  a 
noisy  tavern,  which  seemed  to  be  a  general 
boarding-house  for  the  town.  My  first  care 
was  to  secure  places  for  the  mail-stage  in  the 
morning ;  the  next,  to  hasten  to  the  Falls  of  the 
Chatahoochie,  about  a  mile  from  Columbus, 
where  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  the  gneiss 
rocks  again  in  place,  and  of  seeing  this  fine 
river  tumble  over  them  just  as  it  does  at  Fred- 
ericsburgh  and  Richmond,  in  Virginia :  indeed, 
there  is  a  strong  scenic  resemblance  betwixt 
the  falls  of  all  the  rivers  on  the  east  side  of  the 
chain  which  fronts  the  Atlantic.  After  gratify- 
ing my  curiosity,  I  recrossed  the  bridge  to  the 
Indian  side  of  the  Chatahoochie,  where  I  saw  a 
great  many  huts,  and  some  dwellings  apparent- 
ly belonging  to  white  persons.  Here  I  found 
the  lowest  stage  of  drunkenness  and  debauchery, 
prevailing  to  such  an  extent  that  the  settlement 
had  acquired  the  nickname  of  Sodom :  and  on 
my  return  into  Columbus  the  street  was  swarm- 
ing with  drunken  Indians,  and  young  prosti- 
tutes, both  Indian  and  white,  a  sufficient  indi- 
cation of  the  manners  of  the  place. 

Having  reached  the  tavern  again,  we  endea- 
voured to  get  something  to  eat,  and  were  told 
to  wait  until  the  supper-bell  rang ;  which  havr 
ing  done  with  great  patience,  we  moved,  as 
soon  as  the  tumultuous  rush  common  upon  such 
occasions  was  effected,  to  the  supper-table ;  but 
it  was  so  full  that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  get 
a  seat  there,  neither  was  there  another  chair  or 
bench  in  the  room  ;  so,  knowing  it  would  serve 
no  purpose  to  show  any  impatience,  we  remain- 
ed standing  and  looking  on.  The  art  of  bolting 
was  practised  here  with  as  much  success  as  I  had 
seen  it  done  at  any  other  place,  and  in  less  than 
ten  minutes  every  man,  without  exception,  had 
gone  back  again  to  the  bar-room ;  a  circum- 
stance that  would  have  given  us  unalloyed 
pleasure,  if  they  had  not  taken  every  scrap  that 
had  been  set  on  the  table  along  with  them.  We 
now  made  our  wants  known  ;  and  the  mistress 
of  the  house,  learning  that  we  were  the  two 
U 


"men"  that  had  come  from  the  "nation"  in  a 
carriage,  very  obligingly  ordered  some  food  to- 
be  produced  for  us,  which  after  a  little  more 
patience,  we  had  the  satisfaction  of  eating  alone. 

We  left  Columbus,  January  17,  at  5J-  A.  M., 
keeping  on  the  edge  of  the  gneiss,  which  is 
covered  with  sand,  gravel,  and  clay,  bearing  oak, 
hickory  (Juglans),  and  pine  trees.  During  the 
day  we  got  upon  the  red  lands,  formed  appa- 
rently by  the  decomposition  of  primary  ferrugi- 
nous slates,  and  proceeded  on  over  what  is  call- 
ed a  rolling  and  broken  country.  At  the  end  of 
fifteen  miles  we  stopped  at  Ellerslie  to  break- 
fast, and  were  heartily  glad  we  should  not  have 
to  encounter  any  more  of  the  distressing  scenes 
we  had  left  behind,  for  we  had  now  got  into  a 
white  community,  if  a  population  can  properly 
be  called  so  where  nine  out  of  ten  are  black. 
From  thence  we  proceeded  seventeen  miles  to 
Talbotton,  the  soil  being  generally  red,  and 
strewed  with  quartz  boulders.  On  our  road 
from  this  place  to  Flint  River — a  tributary  of 
the  Appalachicola,  and  a  very  fine  stream — the 
driver  incautiously  overturned  the  mail-stage, 
without  however,  doing  us  any  great  harm. 
Having  crossed  the  Flint,  we  proceeeed  through 
a  sandy  country,  with  pine  timber,  seven  miles 
to  Knoxville  ;  and  thence  to  Macon,  a  very 
pretty  town,  with  a  population  of  from  3000  to 
4000  inhabitants,  and  which,  like  all  the  towns 
in  this  part  of  the  United  States,  has  a  cheerful 
appearance,  not  being  cramped  up  as  they  are 
in  the  Northern  States.  The  principal  street  in 
Macon  is  so  wide  that  I  took  the  trouble  to 
measure  it,  and  found  it  150  feet  broad. 

The  Ocmulgee  River,  upon  which  Macon  is 
situated,  is  a  branch  of  the  Alatamaha,  the  first 
river  which  empties  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
north  of  the  peninsula  of  Florida,  and  the  Flint, 
which  we  have  just  left  behind,  being  a  branch 
of  the  Appalachicola  River,  which  empties  into 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  I  determined  to  stay  a 
short  time  here  for  the  purpose  of  collecting 
some  of  the  fresh-water  shells  called  Unios 
from  the  Ocmulgee,  and  comparing  them  with, 
those  I  had  taken  from  the  various  waters  which, 
flow  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  fact  had 
been  for  some  time  ascertained  that,  farther  to 
the  north,  the  Unios,  which  are  one  of  the  divi- 
sions of  the  family  Naiades  of  Lamarck,  consist-  , 
ed  as  to  numbers,  of  comparatively  few  species, 
and  these  generally  homely  in  their  appearance, 
thin  and  unornamented,  when  contrasted  with 
those  so  unrivalled  for  their  beauty,  which  in- 
habit the  waters  flowing  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexi- 
co ;  the  Atlantic  shells  being  without  that  re- 
splendent nacre,  that  rare  pearly  and  delicately- 
coloured  interior,  that  rich  velvetty  tuberculated 
and  plicated  exterior,  and  those  curious  alated, 
forms  which  distinguish  the  Unios  of  the  west- 
ern waters. 

An  opportunity  now  occurred  of  observing 
whether  so  extraordinary  a  difference  in  the  ex- 
terior and  interior  structure  of  shells  belonging: 
to  the  same  genus  was  geographically  true  at 
this  point,  where  rivers  emptying  into  the  At- 
lantic and  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  were  flow- 
ing through  the  same  region,  and  only  distant 
thirty  rriiles  from  each  other. 

Owing  to  the  state  of  the  waters,  I  was  not 
fortunate  in  procuring  many  shells.  The  Unia 
purpurcus,  however,  which  I  had  not  found  in 


154 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


any  of  the  Gulf  waters,  and  which  is  the  char- 
acteristic shell  of  the  Atlantic  rivers,  I  did  find 
in  the  Ocmulgee,  without  being  accompanied  by 
a  single  specimen  of  any  of  the  beautiful  west- 
ern species,  with  most  of  which  I  had  now  be- 
some  extremely  conversant :  nor  could  I  find 
out  from  any  of  the  people  at  Macon,  to  whom 
I  showed  specimens  of  the  western  shells,  that 
such  were  found  in  the  Ocmulgee  at  any  stage 
of  its  waters.  This  examination,  therefore, 
tended  to  confirm  the  opinion  that  an  extra- 
ordinary diversity  of  character  prevails  in  the 
Unios  inhabiting  these  two  classes  of  rivers,  a 
diversity  which  appears  to  amount  to  a  total 
separation  of  kinds. 

Nor  does  the  fact  militate  against  this  opinion 
of  their  general  separation,  that  at  various 
points  lying  farther  to  the  north,  the  inhabitants 
of  these  two  classes  of  rivers  are,  for  a  limited 
distance,  found  partially  intermixed  in  the 
sources  of  streams  which  interlock  each  other, 
as  well  as  in  some  of  the  upper  lakes,  such  as 
Lake  Erie,  Lake  Huron,  and  Lake  Michigan  ; 
for  the  western  Unios  found  at  those  points  do 
not  appear  to  travel  to  great  distances  from 
their  native  waters,  and  never  to  descend  the 
Atlantic  rivers  to  where  the  tide  flows  ;  so  that 
even  the  exception  proves  the  fact  of  a  real  ge- 
ographical separation  of  these  mollusca,  leav- 
ing the  intermixture  to  be  explained  by  the  oc- 
casional inundations  that  frequently  connect 
the  eastern  and  western  waters  at  points  where 
the  difference  of  level  is  never  more  than  twen- 
ty feet. 

Mr.  Conrad,  the  only  American  naturalist 
"who  appears  to  have  travelled  for  the  purpose 
of  studying  this  interesting  Naiad  family,  has 
communicated  to  me  the  specific  names  of 
more  than  one  hundred  species  (1)  of  the  Unio 
inhabiting  the  waters  flowing  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  of  which  not  one  of  the  preponderating 
species  has  been  found  in  the  Atlantic  streams  : 
and,  as  I  have  before  observed,  the  Unio  purpu- 
reus,  that  is  the  characteristic  shell  of  about 
twenty  species  inhabiting  the  Atlantic  streams, 
is  not  found  to  the  west  of  Flint  River. 

The  causes  which  have  produced  so  striking 
a  difference  in  the  shells  of  these  mollusca,  or 
have  led  to  this  curious  geographical  distribution 
•of  their  different  species,  well  deserve  the  atten- 
tion of  philosophic  naturalists.  If  what  have 
hitherto  been  called  species  are,  in  most  instan- 
ces, only  varieties  produced  by  expediency,  then 
the  mineral  character  of  the  strata  through 
which  the  rivers  flow,  the  degree  of  dynamic  ac- 
tion of  the  streams,  and  the  peculiarity  of  food 
and  climate,  may  be  amongst  the  efficient  causes 
of  geographical  distribution  and  general  variety. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  there  was  undoubtedly 
a  time  preceding  the  existence  of  all  the  rivers, 
viz.,  when  the  whole  continent  of  North  Ameri- 
ca was  covered  by  the  ocean,  the  origin  of  all 
fresh-water  mollusca  must  necessarily  be  as- 
signed to  a  period  subsequent  to  the  upraising 
of  the  dry  land  from  the  bosom  of  the  ocean,  and 
the  establishment  of  rivers;  a  state  of  things 
which  admits  a  conclusion  capable,  perhaps,  of 
reconciling  the  anomaly  of  the  case,  since  it 
•would  bring  all  these  widely  separated  mollusca 
into  the  general  category  of  organized  beings, 
created  with  inherent  faculties  capable  of  secu- 
uring  all  the  advantages  of  the  varying  regions 


in  which  they  were  produced,  and  in  which  they 
were  fitted  to  live,  without  a  chance  of  any  ma- 
terial deviation  in  their  constitutional  structure, 
The  power  of  accommodating  themselves  to  a 
partial  change  of  country  has  no  doubt  been  ac- 
corded to  all  beings,  and,  in  the  case  of  these 
mollusca,  we  see  how  they  are  subject  to  ad- 
mixture, and  to  a  casual  separation  from  their 
original  habitats. 

The  differences  in  the  exterior  of  their  shells, 
even  when  they  are  so  slight  as  to  escape  the 
notice  of  other  observers,  have  made  them  ob- 
jects of  the  most  intense  anxiety  to  many  of 
those  ardent  conchologists  who  indulge  in  ex- 
tensive generalization  over  the  fireside,  and  who 
rush  into  immortality  upon  the  strength  of  any 
difference,  often  unreal,  which  appears  to  sepa- 
rate one  shell  from  another,  and  to  justify  them 
in  adding  to  the  list  of  species,  already  cumbrous 
and  perplexing,  by  the  multiplication  of  conflict- 
ing synonymes.  The  grand  object  of  some  of 
these  sedentary  naturalists  appears  to  be  to  coin 
a  new  Latin  name,  and  add  the  magical  word 
"nobis"  to  it.  Accidental  characters  are  just 
as  valuable  to  them  as  natural  ones.  If  a  shell 
in  a  particular  stream  is  soft  and  friable  and 
easily  decorticated  at  the  beaks,  \\  here  it  is  most 
exposed  to  disintegration,  it  is  forthwith  raised 
into  a  species,  and  becomes  Unio  cariosus,  al- 
though practical  naturalists  know  that  the  same 
shell  in  other  streams  is  never  decorticated  in 
the  slightest  degree. 

Other  shells,  which  have  been  named  circulus, 
orbiculatis,  subrolundus,  triangulans,  and  the  like, 
according  to  their  approximation  to  a  round  or 
angular  shape,  are  often  found  with  characters 
totally  opposite  to  those  specifically  assigned  to 
them  ;  so  that  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  Unios 
without  the  specific  characters  upon  which  their 
rank  depends  in  the  books,  whilst  they  have  got 
those  of  almost  every  other  shell.  Unio  cor- 
nutus,  which  in  some  streams  has  peculiar  pro- 
tuberances on  the  exterior  of  the  shell,  is  found 
in  others  without  even  the  budding  of  horns ; 
so  that  there  are  horned  shells  without  horns, 
and  carious  shells  perfectly  sound.  What  would 
be  said  of  the  want  of  sense  of  cattle-breeders, 
if  they  were  to  talk  of  long-horned  cattle  that 
had  got  no  horns,  and  Durham  short-horns  with 
long  horns?  These  races,  which  externally 
differ  from  all  other  animals  of  the  same  family, 
are  artificial  varieties  produced  by  a  departure 
from  their  natural  habits,  and  would,  if  they 
were  no  longer  influenced  by  art,  go  back  to 
another  and  very  different  state.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  very  surprising  that  the  same  Unio 
should  differ  occasionally  so  much  in  the  shape 
of  its  shell,  or  that  it  should  he  carious  in  one 
stream  and  sound  in  another,  since  the  modifi- 
cation in  the  first  case  may  be  produced  by  the 
circumstances  it  is  exposed  to,  aided  by  an  in- 
herent power  of  adaptation  to  them,  and  in  the 
second,  perhaps,  by  the  absence  or  presence  of 
parasites.  As  to  the  nature  of  that  inherent 
power,  we  know  that  the  shells  of  these  mol- 
lusca are  repaired  again  when  they  are  injured; 
and  may,  without  assuming  either  intelligence 
or  volition  for  the  animal  in  that  act,  infer  that 
the  same  provident  care  which  knits  the  broken 
limb  of  the  unconscious  child,  has  not  only  been 
extended  to  the  mollusca,  but  modifies,  when 
necessary,  the  primary  form  of  their  shells. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


155 


When,  therefore,  we  find  them  thus  modified,  it  | 
is  hut  evidence  of  what  nature  is  ever  vigilant 
to  do  for  conservative  purposes.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  hut  regard  the  labours  of  th'ose  neolo- 
gists  who  found  their  classification  of  the  mol- 
lusca  upon  the  shells  of  the  animals,  as  idle  and 
insecure.  It  is  to  be  regretted,  both  for  the 
sake  of  zoology  and  conchoiogy,  that  so  many 
specie-makers  are  pursuing  the  shadow  and  not 
the  substance.  When  conchologists  make  the 
knowledge  of  malacology  the  serious  object  of 
their  labours,  when  they  study  the  animal  more 
and  the  shells  less,  every  accession  to  our  know- 
Sedge  of  this  branch  of  natural  history  can  be 
profitably  carried  to  the  general  account  of 
science,  and  will  redound  to  the  permanent  hon- 
our of  the  discoverer  ;  whilst  those  who  encum- 
ber the  path  of  science  ty  their  contests  for 
priority  in  inventing  names  for  shells  will  ac- 
quire no  lasting  reputation^  even  when  they 
succeed  in  establishing  their  claims. 

From  Macon  to  Milledgeville  we  had  thirty 
miles  of  bad  road  over  a  red  clay  exceedingly 
cut  up.  This  town  is  situated  on  a  hill  near 
the  Oconnee  River,  the  east  branch  of  the  Ala- 
tamaha,  and  is,  like  the  rest,  an  open,  airy 
place,  with  fine  broad  streets.  We  were  now 
an  a  part  of  the  old  colony  of  Georgia  before  it 
-was  enlarged  by  acquisitions  from  the  Creeks. 
Timber  was  comparatively  scarce,  the  soil  a 
deep  red  earth,  still  good  for  cotton,  and  the 
fields  large  and  under  good  fence.  On  descend- 
ing a  hill  about  ten  miles  from  this  place,  I 
found  gneiss  near  a  small  stream,  with  veins 
of  porphyritic  granite  resembling  that  upon 
•which  the  Chesterfield  coal-field,  in  Virginia, 
reposes,  which  is  of  the  same  character  as  the 
granite  of  Shapfell,  in  England.  The  weather 
•was  singularly  hot  for  January,  Fahrenheit 
showing  74°  upon  the  scale  at  noon.  From 
hence  we  made  twenty-three  miles  to  Sparta,  a 
pleasing  rural-looking  place,  built  upon  a  hill, 
and  containing  some  neat  houses,  with  a  very 
good  sort  of  tavern.  The  roads  were  very  bad 
the  next  twenty-three  miles  to  Warrenton  ;  we 
crossed  the  Ogeechee  River  at  about-  half  the 
distance,  and  proceeding  all  night  through 
•wretched  roads  for  forty-two  miles,  reached 
Augusta,  on  the  Savannah  River,  a  muddy 
stream  about  200  yards  wide,  which  is  the 
boundary  betwixt  the  States  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia.  This  is  a  long,  straggling  town, 
containing  perhaps  4000  inhabitants;  with  a 
main  street  at  least  a  mile  long,  and  full  of 
small  stores  and  low  taverns.  All  these  south- 
ern towns  are  very  much  alike  :  there  is  always 
one  endless  street  filled  with  small  linen-dra- 
pers' shops  or  stores,  the  owners  of  which  call 
themselves  merchants.  In  some  of  these  stores 
ready-made  clothes  are  sold,  in  others  boots 
and  shoes ;  a  few  of  them  contain  the  wares 
of  ironmongers,  and  perhaps  one  or  two  of  them 
are  small  book  stores.  These,  with  at  least 
one  hundred  dram-shops  and  dirty  taverns,  are 
•what  is  to  be  seen  in  one  of  these  long  streets 
crowded  with  men  all  upon  a  level  in  greedi- 
ness and  vulgarity  ;  in  short,  there  is  nothing 
to  detain  a  traveller  who  is  in  search  of  any 
thing  that  is  rare  and  interesting,  but  everything 
conspires  to  make  him  anxious  to  take  to  the 
roads  again,  be  they  ever  so  bad. 

We  crossed  the  Savannah  over  a  bridge  to  a 


dirty  suburb  called  Hamburgh,  the  termination, 
of  a  railroad  140  miles  long,  from  Charleston, 
on  the  Atlantic.  A  great  part  of  this  railway, 
which  is  a  single  line,  is  raised,  not  on  an  ern- 
mnkment,  but  on  piles  from  six  to  twenty  feet 
high  from  the  ground,  standing  upon  stilts,  as  it 
were,  and  must  be  singularly  dangerous.  At 
the  end  of  the  first  stage  we  passed  a  well-con- 
structed inclined  plane  about  half  a  mile  long. 
Almost  the  whole  distance  of  eighty  miles  from 
Augusta  to  Columbia  is  over  a  pine  and  sand 
>untry  of  the  poorest  character,  the  latter  part 
of  it  being  a  dead  flat.  One  mile  from  Colum- 
bia we  crossed  a  long  wooden  bridge,  thrown 
over  the  Congaree  at  the  confluence  of  the  Sal- 
uda  and  Broad  Rivers,  both  of  which  have  their 
sources  in  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina. 
Not  far  from  the  bridge  this  river  falls  over 
gneiss  rocks  penetrated  by  granitic  veins,  and 
a  short  railway  is  laid  from  the  bridge  up  a  gen- 
tle acclivity  to  the  town,  which  contains  about 
4000  inhabitants.  The  streets,  like  those  of 
the  other  towns,  ar-e  broad,  and  planted  with 
that  gaudy  tree,  the  Pride  of  China  (Melia  Aza- 
derach).  Having  travelled  several  nights  in  that 
exposed  and  most  comfortless  and  lumbrous 
contrivance,  an  American  stage-coach,  I  deter- 
mined to  rest  a  day  or  two  here  and  see  a  few 
acquaintances  I  had  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  so 
being  fortunate  enough  to  get  a  private  room 
at  the  tavern,  I  proceeded  to  spruce  myself  up 
a  little,  a  thing  I  had  not  done  since  I  left  New 
Orleans. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

The  Gentlemen  of  America — The  Tariff  and  Nullification 
—Wise  conduct  of  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun— Warlike 
Propensities  of  an  Octogenarian  Philosopher— A  black 
Animal  chained  on  the  roof  of  a  Stage-coach— The  char- 
acter of  the  White  Man  elevated  by  the  Slavery  of  the 
Black  one. 

COLUMBIA,  the  capital  of  South  Carolina,  is 
pleasantly  situated,  and  in  some  of  its  airy  streets 
there  are  genteel-looking  houses,  which  at  once 
indicate  a  respectable  state  of  society ;  but  I  was 
very  much  surprised  to  find  the  capital  of  the 
State  built  on  a  piece  of  ground  so  barren,  that 
even  grass  will  scarcely  grow  upon  it.  Having 
walked  through  the  streets  to  see  what  the  town 
looked  like,  I  rambled  in  the  afternoon  about  two 
or  three  miles  off"  to  call  upon  Dr.  Cooper,  whom. 
I  had  met  before  in  New  York.  This  gentle- 
man, always  conspicuous,  had  made  himself 
particularly  so  of  late,  in  the  agitation  of  the 
Nullification  question,  which  the  Tariff  law  had 
given  birth  to,  and  which  had  so  nearly  brought 
fhe  State  of  South  Carolina  into  hostile  collision. 
\vith  the  power  of  the  federal  government  under 
the  administration  of  President  Jackson.  Al- 
though the  excitement — which  at  one  time 
threatened  such  fatal  consequences — had  been 
calmed  by  the  judicious  conduct  of  Mr.  Clay 
and  Mr.  Calhoun  in  agreeing  to  the  Compromise 
Act,  yet  the  same  question  is  of  such  vital  con- 
sequence to  South  Carolina,  and  so  important  to 
the  Northern  manufacturers,  that  it  i-s  always 
liable  to  be  agitated  again.  The  leading  plant- 
ers of  South  Carolina  are  generally  men  who, 
having  inherited  large  estates  with  numerous> 
slaves  born  upon  them,  and  received  liberal  ed- 
ucations, consider  themselves,  not  without  some 
reason,  the  gentlemen  of  America;  looking  down 


156 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


upon  the  trading  communities  in  the  Northern 
States,  where  slavery  does  not  exist,  with  tha 
habitual  sense  of  superiority  which  men  born  to 
command — and  above  all  others  slaveholders — 
always  cherish  when  they  are  placed  in  compe 
tition  with  men  engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits, 
whom  they  consider  to  be,  by  the  nature  of  their 
avocations,  incapable  of  rising  to  their  level :  to 
this  feeling,  the  seeds  of  which  are  planted  in 
infancy,  is  added  a  distrust  sometimes  amount- 
ing to  hatred. 

.  The  planter,  although  his  crops  of  cotton  and 
rice  often  produce  him  an  annual  income  far  ex- 
ceeding that  of  the  cultivator  of  the  North,  and 
tempt  him  to  live  in  a  style  corresponding  to  the 
rank  he  believes  himself  to  hold  in  society,  yet 
is  frequently  less  independent  than  the  opulent 
merchant  or  farmer  he  undervalues,  his  annual 
expenditures  being  large  and  certain,  whilst  his 
returns  are  somewhat  precarious.  He  has  per- 
haps to  feed  and  clothe  several  hundred  slaves,  and 
it  is  not  convenient  for  him  to  reduce  his  style  of 
living:  so  that  not  unfrequently  the  merchant  at 
the  north,  who  is  his  agent,  and  to  whom  he  con- 
signs his  productions  for  sale,  sends  him  an  ac- 
count current,  where,  instead  of  small  charges  be- 
ing deducted  from  large  returns,  he  finds  the  ad- 
vances made  to  him  in  money,  the  bills  for  feeding 
and  clothing  his  slaves,  his  wines  and  luxuries, 
and  other  charges,  swelled  to  an  amount  far  ex- 
ceeding the  sum-total  that  his  crops  have  sold 
for;  perceiving  himself  therefore  the  debtor  and 
quasi  slave  of  the  man  he  despises,  his  pride,  his 
interest,  and  his  passions,  all  combine  to  rouse 
his  indignation:  at  such  moments  the  agitated 
planter  is  easily  led  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  any 
politicians  who  flatter  him  with  the  prospect  of 
red  ress. 

When  the  politicians  and  manufacturers  of  the 
Northern  States  combined  to  enact  the  tariff  of 
1828,  "  for  the  protection  of  home  manufactures," 
alleging  that  the  productions  of  the  Southern 
States  were  admitted  without  competition  into 
the  ports  of  England,  a  general  feeling  of  resist- 
ance arose  in  the  State  of  South  Carolina:  the 
duties  now  to  be  levied  upon  those  articles  of  Brit- 
ish manufacture  which  the  planter  was  compell- 
ed to  purchase  for  the  use  of  his  slaves,  must 
necessarily  greatly  augment  his  expenditures, 
and  to  this  was  added  the  apprehension  of  another 
evil  of  still  greater  magnitude,  viz.  that  Great 
Britain  might  lay  retaliatory  duties  upon  his  ex- 
ports, and  gradually  look  to  other  countries  to 
be  supplied  with  them.  Politics  and  interests 
therefore  combined  in  South  Carolina  to  rouse 
the  people  into  a  resistance  to  that  law,  and  the 
government  of  the  State  taking  the  lead,  finished 
by  declaring  that  when  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment manifestly  exceeded  its  powers— of 
which  fact  they  held  that  the  suffering  State 
must  be  the  best  judge—every  single  State  had  a 
natural  and  constitutional  right  to  "nullify  its 
acts." 

Armies  now  were  raised,  and  everything  was 
preparsd  for  resistance,  as  much  as  if  a  foreign 
invader  was  about  to  enter  their  territory.  Such 
was  the  indomitable  spirit  that  appeared  to  pre- 
vail, and  the  determination  not  to  permit  the  rev- 
enue laws  of  the  United  States  to  be  executed  in 
South  Carolina,  that  if  President  Jackson,  as  it 
was  believed  he  was  disposed  to  do,  had  attempt- 
ed to  execute  them  by  force,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  a  furious  civil  war  would  have  raged  in  the 
State,  of  which  the  consequences— let  the  ques- 
tionable result  have  been  either  one  way  or  the 


other — must  have  been  signally  fatal ;  for  no  one 
can  predict  the  ultimate  consequences  of  giving 
military  habits  to  a  numerous  slave  population, 
which  must  upon  so  fatal  a  contingency  have 
unavoidably  taken  place.  Happily  for  the  coun- 
try, the  wise  compromise  which  took  place,  the 
effect  of  which  was  to  provide  ibr  the  gradual 
reduction  of  those  oppressive  tariff  duties  to  an 
amount  limited  by  the  wants  of  the  public  reve- 
nue, and  not  by  the  demands  for  protection,  avert- 
ed this  great  danger.  Mr.  Clay,  whom  the  pro- 
tection-party claimed  as  their  leader,  and  Mr. 
Calhoun,  the.  avowed  leader  of  the  Nullifying 
party,  patrictically  concurred  in  making  sacrifi- 
ces in  favour  of  peace,  by  carrying  the  measure 
called  the  Compromise  Act  through  the  national 
legislature. 

No  man  had  taken  a  more  energetic  and  ani- 
mated part  in  this  dangerous  agitation  than  the 
veteran  Dr.  Cooper,  now  approaching  his  eighti- 
eth year,  and  one  «f  the  most  remarkable  men 
that  have  emigrated  from  England — his  native 
country — to  the  United  States.  Cooper  was  a 
philoshpical  tteve  of  the  famous  Dr.  Priestley, 
and  finding  that  everything  in  England  was  too 
long  or  too  short  for  him,  he  passed  over  to  the 
"  asylum  of  oppressed  humanity,"  with  the  in- 
tention of  making  it  his  home  for  life.  He  was 
a  man  of  singular  versatility  of  talent,  of  unceas- 
ing activity,  and  great  natural  benevolence.  His 
attainments  were  various;  there  was  nothing  in 
law,  physic,  divinity,  chemistry,  or  general  sci- 
ence that  he  had  -entirely  overlooked ;  and  al- 
though some  of  his  screws  were  uncommonly 
loose,  particularly  his  religious  ones,  he  was  ca- 
pable of  being  a  very  useful  member  of  society, 
and  was  always — as  such  a  man  with  so  much, 
experience  must  be — a  most  agreeable  and  in- 
structive companion.  But  that  which  above  all 
hings  made  the  Doctor  happy,  and  which  wher- 
ever he  went  seemed  to  be  his  study  to  provide 
a  quantum  sufficit  of,  was  persecution,  and  this 
he  was  fortunate  enough  to  find  even  in  Ameri- 
ca. On  his  arrival  his  talents  procured  him  an 
official  appointment  of  some  distinction  in  Penn- 
sylvania, but  he  soon  contrived  to  be  driven  from 
it,  and  to  be  fined  heavily  into  the  bargain.  At 
ength  he  took  refuge  in  South  Carolina,  was 
well  received  by  the  leading  planters  there,  and 
placed  in  the  honourable  and  lucrative  situation 
of  President  of  the  College  in  the  town  of  Co- 
umbia.  I 

Here  the  Doctor  might  have  flourished  in  re- 
nown, and  have  pursued  a  career  of  usefulness, 
jut  the  current  was  too  gentle  for  him,  and  pre- 
ferring troubled  waters,  he  began  to  insinuate 
that  it  was  unworthy  of  free  men  to  be  educated 
n  religious  prejudices,  and  ended  by  openly  de- 
nouncing the  Christian  religion.  If  there  were 
a  few  persons  in  the  State  to  whom  this  was 
agreeable,  there  were  a  great  many  to  whom  it 
was  very  offensive.  The  friends  of  the  college 
had  hoped  that  in  placing  an  amiable  person 
with  such  various  attainments  at  its  head,  he 
would  have  possessed  sufficient  judgment  to 
lave  looked  to  the  interests  of  the  institution, 
and  would  have  endeavoured  to  support  that 
which  supported  him.  The  sons  of  persons  en- 
:ertaining  different  opinions  both  in  religion  and 
Dolitics  were  to  be  educated  here,  and  it  was  ex- 
pected by  all  that  though  theology  was  not  to  be 
i  principal  branch  of  study,  yet  a  reverence  for 
religion  would  be  inculcated;  it  was  soon  made 
evident,  however,  that  anything  but  this  was  in- 
stilled into  the  young  minds  entrusted  to  his 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


157 


care,  and  parents  immediately  began  to  withdraw 
their  children  from  an  institution  where  the 
Christian  religion  was  openly  derided.  The 
Doctor  having  succeeded  in  driving  away  all 
those  who  were  not  disposed  to  imbibe  his  irre- 
ligious opinions,  proceeded  to  practise  the  same 
tactics  with  those  who  would  not  agree  with 
him  in  defying  the  government  of  the  country, 
as  established  by  law,  in  regard  to  Nullification ; 
so  that  his  students  became  at  length  very  few 
in  numbers,  and  not  long  before  I  reached  Co- 
lumbia, the  friends  of  the  college,  to  save  it  from 
total  ruin,  caused  the  Doctor  to  be  removed  from 
his  situation.  In  doing  this  they  acted  with 
great  .delicacy  and  generosity,  creating  for  him 
a  sort  of  sinecure  office,  under  which,  unless  he 
again  oscillates  out  of  his  orbit,  he  may  enjoy  a 
very  competent  salary  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

I  found  Doctor  Cooper  in  a  pleasant  little 
villa,  which  the  ladies  of  his  family  had  fur- 
nished with  a  great  many  comforts.  He  re- 
ceived me  very  cordially,  and  although  about 
eighty  years  old,  began  to  talk  with  wonderful 
energy  and  vivacity  upon  a  variety  of  subjects. 
The  Compromise  Act,  however,  was  uppermost 
in  the  Doctor's  mind,  and  I  soon  saw  that  he 
did  not  like  it  at  all,  for  it  had  extinguished 
all  the  eloquence,  patriotism,  and  achievement 
which  Nullification  might  have  brought  forth  at 
a  future  day.  Upon  my  congratulating  him  upon 
that  measure,  and  the  happy  consequences  which 
•would  flow  from  it,  he  rose  from  his  easy  chair, 
and  although  almost  bent  double  like  a  h'ook,  he 
seized  the  hearth-brush,  and  with  his  eyes  full 
of  fire,  and  wielding  the  brush  as  if  it  were  a 
broadsword,  denounced  the  Compromise  Act  as 
an  ignoble  measure  which  he  never  could  ap- 
prove of;  declared  that  the'Nullifiers  were  quite 
in  the  wrong  to  make  peace  with  the  Union 
men  (their  opponents  in  South  Carolina),  and 
that  it  would  have  been  a  much  better  course 
for  them  to  have  taken  the  field  against  General 
Jackson,  and  have  fought  all  the  power  he  could 
have  brought  against  them.  "  We  have  lost  a 
fine  opportunity,  sir,  of  carrying  this  State  to  the 
highest  renown,"  said  this  little  crooked  octo- 
genarian; and  then  giving  General  Jackson  a 
desperate  cut  with  the  hearth-brush,  he  went 
back  to  his  easy  chair  again. 

I  was  perfectly  delighted  with  the  vivacity  of 
the  old  gentleman,  and  never  passed  a  pleasanter 
evening.  At  tea  we  were  joined  by  some  very 
well-bred  neighbours,  amongst  whom  were  sever- 
al ladies,  to  whom  the  Doctor,  constantly  paddling 
about  amongst  them,  paid  his  lively  compliments, 
and  then  returned  to  his  chair  to  laugh  and  dis- 
pute about  chemistry,  geology,  law,  and,  above 
all,  religion  and  politics.  Whatever  side  of  the 
question  he  took  he  maintained  it  with  wonder- 
ful energy,  and  always  with  pertinacity  when 
he  could  not  do  it  with  reason,  as  if  it  was  too 
late  in  life  for  him  to  be  convinced  about  such 
matters. 

The  next  morning  I  visited  the  college,  which 
had  the  appearance  of  being  very  much  neglect- 
ed; there  was  a  collection  of  minerals,  but  it 
was  in  wretched  disorder;  indeed  everything 
seemed  to  be  out  of  place.  On  my  return  I 
learnt  that  some  gentlemen,  with  whom  I  had 
'been  previously  acquainted,  had  called  upon 
me,  and  I  willingly  accepted  an  invitation  to 
dine  with  one  of  them.  Our  party  consisted  of 
.some  gentlemen  of  the  place,  Dr.  Cooper,  and  a 
few  professors  belonging  to  the  cojlege.  Some 
of  them  were  very  intelligent  men.  and  hearty 


in  their  manners.  What  particularly  struck  me 
at  this  dinner  was  the  total  want  of  caution  and 
reserve  in  the  ultra  opinions  they  expressed 
about  religion  and  politics;  on  these  topics  their 
conversation  was  not  at  all  addressed  to  me,  but 
seemed  to  be  a  resumption  of  the  opinions  they 
were  accustomed  to  express  whenever  they  met, 
and  upon  all  occasions.  A  stranger  dropped  in 
amongst  them  from  the  clouds  would  hardly 
have  supposed  himself  amongst  Americans,  the 
language  they  used  and  the  opinions  they  ex- 
pressed were  so  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
self-laudatory  strain  they  too  generally  indulge 
in  when  speaking  of  their  country  or  themselves. 
It  was  quite  new  to  me  to  hear  men  of  the  better 
class  express  themselves  openly  against  a  re- 
publican government,  and  to  listen  to  discus- 
sions of  great  ability,  the  object  of  which  was 
to  show  that  there  never  can  be  a  good  govern- 
ment if  it  is  not  administered  by  gentlemen. 
Not  having  shared  in  the  conversation,  I  ven- 
tured at  one  time  to  name  Mr.  Madison,  at 
whose  house  I  was  in  the  habit  of  making  au- 
tumnal visits,  as  a  person  that  would  have 
ranked  as  a  gentleman  in  any  country ;  but  I 
was  immediately  stopped  by  a  declaration  that 
he  was  a  false  hypocritical  dissembler,  that  he 
was  one  of  the  favourites  of  the  Sovereign  Peo- 
ple, and  one  of  the  worst  men  the  country  had 
produced.  At  a  period  of  less  excitement  such, 
a,  sentiment  would  not  have  been  tolerated,  and 
I  could  not  but  attribute  their  present  pique 
against  this  eminent  statesman  to  the  inflexible 
opposition  he  had  given  to  Nullification,  which 
went  to  destroy  the  efficacy  of  the  constitution 
he  had  been  one  of  the  principal  framers  of.  A 
short  time  after,  something  very  extravagant 
having  been  said,  I  could  not  help  asking,  in  a 
good-natured  way,  if  they  called  themselves 
Americans  yet;  the  gentleman  who  had  inter- 
rupted me  before,  said,  "If  you  ask  me  if  I  am 
an  American,  my  answer  is,  No,  sir,  I  am  a 
South  Carolinian."  If  the  children  of  these 
Nullifiers  are  brought  up  in  the  same  opinions, 
which  they  are  very  likely  to  be,  here  are  fine 
elements  for  future  disunion ;  for,  imbibing  from 
their  infancy  the  notion  that  they  are  born  to 
command,  it  will  be  intolerable  to  them  to  sub- 
mit to  be,  in  their  own  estimation,  the  drudges 
of  the  northern  manufacturers,  whom  they  de- 
spise as  an  inferior  race  of  men.  Even  now 
there  is  nothing  that  a  southern  man  resents  so 
much  as  to  be  called  a  Yankee,  a  term  which  in 
the  Southern  States  is  applied  exclusively  to  the 
New  England  people,  and  in  quite  as  sarcastic 
a  sense  as  it  is  sometimes  applied  in  Europe  to 
all  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
)  Having  secured  seats  in  the  mail  for  the  north 
on  the  22nd  of  January,  we  were  standing  near 
the  stage-coach  at  the  door  of  the  tavern  waiting 
the  arrival  of  the  mail  from  Charleston,  when  it 
drove  up  with  a  negro  male  slave,  about  thirty- 
years  old,  chained  flat  on  the  roof,  the  poor  devil 
having  been  overtaken  by  his  master  after  an 
ineffectual  attempt  to  run  away. 

It  happened,  oddly  enough,  that  a  gentleman 
whom  I  had  met  at  dinner,  and  with  whom  I  had 
had  more  than  once  a  good  deal  of  conversation, 
having  called  to  bid  me  good  bye,  was  at  this  * 
very  moment  talking  rather  earnestly  with  me 
on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Admiring  his  intelli- 
gence and  the  liberality  of  his  sentiments  on 
other  subjects,  I  had  ventured  to  observe — what 
I  had  cautiously  abstained  from  doing  when  in. 
society — that  it  detracted  very  much  from  the 


158 


TRAVELS   IN  AMERICA. 


estimation  in  which  the  gentlemen  of  South 
Carolina  otherwise  deserved  to  be  held,  that  no 
relaxation  was  to  be  found  in  their  opinions 
about  slavery,  and  that  it  seemed  to  me  their 
state  could  never  be  as  prosperous  as  the  north- 
ern states,  as  long  as  they  held  men  in  bondage, 
and  relied  entirely  upon  slave  labour.  The  line 
of  argument  he  took  up  in  answer  to  my  obser- 
vation was  really  very  curious,  and  deserves  to 
be  recorded. 

He  observed  that  the  working  of  the  institution 
of  slavery  (so  he  dignified  this  bondage)  was  not 
understood  out  of  the  slave  states ;  that  it  elevated 
the  character  of  the  master,  by  comparison,  made 
him  jealous  of  his  own,  and  the  natural  friend  of 
public  liberty ;  that  the  dignity  of  character  which 
had  belonged  to  southern  gentlemen,  from  Wash- 
ington down  to  the  present  times,  was  unknown 
to  the  men  of  the  northern  states,  and  must  al- 
ways be,  since  one  effect  of  their  laws  and  cus- 
toms was  to  cause  a  division  of  the  estate  of 
every  head  of  a  family,  on  his  decease,  equally 
amongst  his  children,  and  so  compel  every  one 
of  them  to  reconstruct  a  fortune  as  well  as  he 
could;  that  every  body  knew  this  generated  a 
rapacious  spirit,  and  made  the  accumulation  of 
wealth  the  sole  object  of  every  man's  life.  This 
was  not  the  case  in  South  Carolina,  where  the 
planter,  whatever  might  be  his  transactions,  was 
careful  not  to  encroach  upon  the  character  of 
the  gentleman ;  and  he  adduced  Mr.  Calhoun, 
the  leader  of  the  Nullifying  party,  as  an  eminent 
instance  of  the  justice  of  what  he  said.  This 
gentleman,  he  remarked,  was  a  planter  and  a 
slaveholder,  who  in  private  life  never  had  been 
known  to  be  guilty  of  a  mean  action,  and  in  pub- 
lic life  had  never  omitted  an  opportunity  of  vin- 
dicating the  constitution  from  the  attempts  of 
sordid  persons  to  pervert  its  intentions.  For 
these  reasons,  he  said,  Mr.  Calhoun,  independent 
of  his  great  intellectual  powers,  was  universally 
honoured  in  his  native  state,  and  was  justly  look- 
ed up  to  by  all  as  the  vigilant  guardian  of  its 
rights.  All  these  great  principles  of  action,  he 
added,  were  developed  and  strengthened  by  the 
institution  of  slavery;  that  the  slaves  were  not 
an  unhappy  race  of  men;  they  were  well  fed, 
well  clothed  ;  and  if  there  had  been  a  necessity 
for  it  in  the  late  dispute  with  the  United  States 
government,  the  slaves  would  have  shown  to  a 
man  their  well-known  fidelity  to  their  masters. 

I  was  struck  with  this  justification  of  slavery, 
which,  notwithstanding  its  excluding  humanity, 
benevolence,  and  justice  from  the  list  of  our  du- 
ties to  others,  would  seem  to  qualify  white  men 
in  a  very  high  degree  for  the  enjovment  of  the 
compulsory  labour  of  men  of  a  different  colour. 
If  it  means  any  thing,  it  must  mean  that  every 
man  should  he  a  slaveholder  in  order  to  the  suc- 
cessful development  of  his  own  inherent  dignity. 

Just  at  the  moment  my  friend  had  finished, 
the  exception  to  this  fidelity  before  noticed  drove 
Up  to  where  we  were  talking,  chained  at  full 
length  flat  upon  the  top  of  the  stage.  I  had  seen 
turtles,  and  venison,  and  wild  turkeys,  and  things 
of  that  sort,  fastened  to  the  top  of  a  stage-coach 
before,  but  this  was  the  first  black  man  I  ever  saw 
arranged  in  that  manner.  Catching  a  glimpse 
of  him  as  the  stage  drove  up,  I  thought  it  was  a 
bear,  or  some  other  animal  on  its  way  to  the 
larder;  but  in  a  few  minutes  they  handed  him 
down  from  the  top,  holding  him  by  the  end  of  his 
chain,  exactly  as  if  he  had  been  a  baboon,  and 
then  proceeded  to  hoist  him  to  the  top  of  the 
stage  we  were  .to  travel  in,  and  fasten  him  down 
there  just  as  he  had  been  before. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

Inside  and  Outside  Passengers  in  chains— Bob  Chatwood 
and  the  Game  of  All  Fours— A  Social  Bottle— An  Over- 
turn in  the  dark— Reach  Charlotte,  in  North  Carolina — 
Description  of  the  Gold  Region  in  North  Carolina  and 
Virginia-Richmond,  in  Virginia-The  Chesterfield  Coal- 
Field— Speculations  respecting  it. 

I  NOW  bade  adieu  to  my  friend,  and  pointing  to 
the  poor  fellow  in  bonds,  told  him  that,  since  I 
was  going  to  travel  with  the  institution  of  slavery, 
I  hoped  1  should  turn  out  to  be  a  perfect  Hamp- 
den  before  the  day  was  over.  He  laughed  and 
went  away,  and  Mr.  T********  and  myself  took 
our  seats  in  the  stage-coach,  not  in  the  least 
dreaming  of  what  was  now  going  to  occur.  We 
were  left  alone  for  a  few  minutes,  and  I  was  ru- 
minating upon  the  fine  theory  of  the  person  who 
had  just  gone  away,  and  contrasting  it  with  the 
practical  consequences  attending  the  "institu- 
tion," as  exemplified  over  my  head,  when  a  num- 
ber of  persons  came  out  of  the  kitchen  door  of 
the  tavern,  approached  the  stage,  opened  the 
door  with  something  of  a  bustle,  and  handed  a 
young  white  man  into  it,  about  twenty-five  years 
old,  wjth  his  legs  fettered  and  manacles  on  his 
hands.  This  agreeable  object  took  the  hind  seat 
exactly  opposite  to  me,  and  after  him  entered  a 
deputy  sheriff,  in  whose  custody  he  was,  and  a, 
number  of  low  vulgar  fellows — all  seeming  very 
much  in  want  of  shackles — until  the  stage  was 
full.  I  was  so  exceedingly  struck  with  the  nov- 
elty of  my  situation,  travelling  in  a  stage-coach, 
with  a  black  man  in  chains  at  the  top,  and  a 
white  man  chained  in  the  inside,  that  I  could  not 
help  calling  the  agent  of  the  stage  to  the  window 
next  to  my  seat,  to  ask  him  if  he  could  not  get 
me  a  yellow  man  from  the  mulattos  in  the  street, 
to  chain  at  the  bottom.  The  man  laughed  heart- 
ily, and  gave  me  the  history  of  my  opposite 
neighbour. 

His  name  was  Bob  Chatwood,  a  desperate, 
gambling,  dissolute  fellow,  from  his  earliest 
years.  One  of  Bob's  practices  was  to  persuade 
negroes  that  he  was  acquainted  with  to  steal 
whatever  they  could  from  their  masters,  convert 
it  into  money,  and  then  play  with  them  at  all 
fmirs,  a  game  some  of  them  are  very  fond  of. 
There  was  a  black  amateur,  a  great  adept  at 
the  game,  quite  equal  to  Bob  at  it;  and  upon  one 
occasion,  when  they  were  playing  together  in  a: 
shed  by  the  light  of  an  old  lamp,  the  negro  won. 
every  game.  Bob  lost  his  temper,  and  after 
keeping  the  black  man  up  almost  all  night,  re- 
fused in  the  end  to  pay  his  losses;  but  producing- 
two  silver  dollars,  told  him  if  he  could  win  them, 
he  would  pay  him.  Luck  still  continued  on 
Sambo's  side,  who,  having  won  the  game,  in- 
stantly snatched  up  the  money  and  ran  off.  Bob 
soon  overtook  him,  and  in  the  scuffle  which  en- 
sued, finding  the  black  man  too  strong,  he  ran  a 
knife  into  his  throat  and  mortally  wounded  the 
poor  fellow,  who  had  just  strength  to  get  home, 
tell  his  story,  and  expire. 

For  this  offence  Bob  was  tried,  and,  being  a 
white  man,  great  sympathy  was  manifested  in 
his  favour.  If  it  had  been  nothing  but  an  angry 
scuffle  between  them,  he  would  probably  have- 
been  acquitted,  but  he  had  committed  the  unpar- 
donable sin  of  playing  at  cards  with  a  slave  for 
stolen  property:  this  was  proved  against  him  at 
Chesterville,  a  town  through  which  we  were  to- 
pass,  and  he  was  found  guilty  of  murder.  His 
friends,  however,  had  influence  to  procure  a  new 
trial  before  the  superior  court  at  Columbia,  where 
he  had  beert  removed ;  but  the  example  was  too 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


159 


dangerous,  and  the  first  sentence  had  just  been 
confirmed,  and  Bob  ordered  to  be  hung  in  April 
next. 

The  silence  which  prevailed  in  the  stage-coach 
for  the  first  mile  or  two  was  broken  by  the  dep- 
uty taking  a  bottle  of  liquor  from  his  pocket, 
putting  it  to  his  mouth,  and  passing  it  round, 
when  each  one,  taking  his  quid  of  tobacco  out 
for  an  instant,  took  a  swig.  Bob  took  a  very 
hearty  one,  and  then  kindly  passed  the  bottle  to 
me ;  who  having  declined  touching  it,  the  deputy 
extended  his  arm,  took  it  out  of  Bob's  manacled 
paw,  corked  it,  and  replaced  it  in.  his  pocket. 
They  now  began  to  talk  politics ;  all  of  them 
were  Nullifiers  except  Bob,  and  Bob  was  for 
General  Jackson,  probably  thinking  that  the  best 
chance  he  stood  for  his  life  depended  upon  a  suc- 
cessful invasion  of  the  state,  and  a  general  clear- 
ing out  of  the  gaols.  The  bottle  continued  to 
circulate  from  time  to  time;  but  Bob,  finding  me 
so  unsocial,  ceased  offering  it  to  me,  whether 
from  policy  or  displeasure  I  could  not  tell.  He 
looked  very  thoughtful  at  times,  as  if  his  fate 
was  uppermost  in  his  mind  ;  but  he  was  always 
ready  for  the  bottle,  and,  after  he  had  drunk,  was 
sometimes  livelier  than  any  of  them,  getting  into 
long  stories  about  cock-fighting,  and  horse-ra- 
cing, and  card-playing,  that  showed  he  was  a 
perfect  character  in  his  line.  The  deputy  and 
the  other  fellows  laughed  and  joked  and  told  their 
stories,  treating  Bob  exactly  as  if  they  were  his 
equals.  This  agreeable  illusion  seemed  to  cheer 
him  a  little,  and  to  last  until  the  last  swig  at  the 
bottle  had  ceased  to  warm  him,  and  until  there 
was  a  momentary  silence;  then  I  used  to  ob- 
serve, especially  towards  the  close  of  the  day,  that 
a  dreadful  change  would  come  over  his  features, 
as  if  the  unfortunate  wretch  was  picturing  to 
himself  his  last  moments,  when  the  gallows  and 
the  hemp  were  standing  ready  to  receive  him. 
They  had  soon  emptied  the  first  bottle,  and  had 
replenished  it  at  some  place  where  we  had  chan- 
ged horses;  but  this  too  became  nullified,  and  then 
the  whole  party  of  blackguards  seemed  disposed 
to  sleep,  and  left  me  to  such  reflections  as  could 
not  fail  to  occupy  my  mind,  shut  up  as  I  was  in 
a  vehicle  conveying  such  a  horrid  combination 
of  beings. 

We  had  made  fifty-five  miles,  and  were  dri- 
ving on  rather  rapidly  in  the  dark,  having  only 
five  miles  more  to  Chesterville,  when  the  stage, 
having  got  into  a  deep  rut,  was  suddenly  upset 
on  the  side  where  I  was,  and  my  head  coming  to 
the  hard  ground  with  a  violent  blow,  I  received 
a  severe  contusion.  All  had  now  to  get  out  and 
assist  to  replace  the  stage  on  its  wheels.  The 
black  fellow  who  was  chained  to  the  top  was  ex- 
ceedingly amused  with  the  incident,  and  got  into 
one  of  his  negro  fits  of  laughter;  he  was  tired  of 
his  recumbent  position,  and  had  now,  without 
any  trouble  or  hurt,  got  into  a  vertical  one.  We 
could  scarce  see  each  other,  and  an  opportunity 
might  have  occurred  of  Bob's  hiding  himself 
away  in  the  woods  ;  but  the  deputy  and  the  other 
fellows  immediately  convinced  him  that  he  was 
not  quite  one  of  themselves,  by  lashing  him  to  a 
tree,  before  they  assisted  the  driver  with  the 
stage.  As  for  myself,  I  had  such  a  violent  head- 
ache with  the  blow  I  had  got,  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  me  to  assist  them  or  bear  the  motion  of 
the  stage.  I  determined  therefore  to  walk,  dark 
as  it  was,  slowly  on  to  Chesterville,  where  I  ar- 
rived in  about  two  hours  and  a  half,  the  stage 
coming  up  with  me  as  I  was  entering  the  place. 

Our  drive  this  day  was  over  decomposed  fer- 


ruginous slates  ;  and  occasionally,  as  we  drew 
northward,  gneiss  and  greenstone  appeared  in 
the  ravines,  with  a  decomposing  rock,  which 
looked  like  elvan,  frequent  veins  and  beds  of 
which  are  found  in  the  Gold  Region  of  Norths 
Carolina,  which  we  were  now  approaching. 

From  Chesterville,  where  we  left  the  motley 
crew  we  had  been  travelling  with,  black  and 
white,  we  continued  twenty-one  miles  to  York- 
ville,  a  small  village,  and  pursuing  our  journey 
thirty  miles  to  Charlotte,  in  North  Carolina,, 
crossed  the  Catawba  River,  which  lies  half  way 
betwixt  these  two  towns,  into  that  state.  It  was. 
night  before  we  reached  Charlotte;  and  I  went 
immediately  to  bed,  suffering  severely  from  the 
contusion  I  had  received. 

Feeling  myself  refreshed  by  my  night's  rest, 
and  my  headache  having  very  much  abated,  I 
.descended  the  next  morning  to  a  comfortable 
breakfast;  and  afterwards  sallied  out  to  examine 
the  neighbourhood,  which  has  acquired  a  little 
celebrity  by  the  establishment  of  some  mills  here, 
for  the  purpose  of  crushing  the  gold  ore  which. 
abounds  so  much  in  this  part  of  the  country. 

What  is  called  the  Gold  Region  in  the  United 
States,  may  be  described  as  a  metalliferous  belt 
extending  in  a  south-west  direction  from  the  Po- 
tomac River  to  the  heads  of  the  Talapoosa,  in. 
the  State  of  Alabama,  running  in  its  course 
through  the  States  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  and  Georgia.  The  length  of 
this  belt  is  about  600  miles,  and  it  has  a  mean, 
breadth  from  its  southern  to  its  northern  edge  of 
about  eighty.  In  every  part  of  this  extensive 
line  native  gold  is  found  in  alluvial  deposits,  and 
in  various  streams,  whilst  the  contiguous  rocky 
strata  abound  in  quartzose  veins  more  or  les& 
auriferous.  From  the  nature  and  position  of  the 
alluvial  deposits,  the  manner  in  which  they  are 
situated  in  relation  to  the  stream,  and  the  gen- 
eral modification  which  the  surface  has  received 
from  one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  there  has  been, 
at  some  remote  period,  a  great  degradation  of 
the  ancient  surface,  and  that  the  metallic  and. 
stony  contents  of  the  alluvial  deposits  are  com- 
posed of  the  ruins  of  the  old  rocks.  Nothing  is 
more  common  in  these  deposits  than  to  find, 
masses  of  quartz  with  small  lumps  of  native 
gold  imbedded  in  them,  resembling  in  every  par- 
ticular others  which  are  taken  from  veins  now 
in  place,  the  heaviest  masses  being  always  found 
nearest  to  the  auriferous  strata,  and  the  particles 
of  gold  dust  at  the  greatest  distance  from  them. 

The  auriferous  quartzose  veins  in  the  gold 
region  are  singularly  abundant,  and  are  either 
found  in  a  formation  of  which  talcose  slate  is 
the  characteristic  rock — as  in  Virginia — or  are 
sheathed  with  talcose  slate,  and  hold  an  almost 
vertical  position  in  elvan  beds  and  beds  of  ferity 
ginous  slates,  as  in  North  Carolina  ;  so  that  tal- 
cose rocks  characterize  the  entire  Gold  Region, 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other.  These  talcose 
rocks  are  continued  north  from  the  Potomac, 
running  in  the  same  north-east  direction  through, 
the  northern  portion  of  the  United  States  to  the 
River  St.  Lawrence,  south  of  Quebec.  I  have 
traced  them  through  the  whole  of  this  extended 
line,  and  although  gold  is  not  found  in  every 
part  of  it  as  on  the  south  side  of  the  Potomac, 
yet  it  is  eminently  metalliferous  in  copper  and 
lead,  and  native  gold  has  been  found  upon  it  in 
various  localities  even  as  far  as  the  extreme 
point  to  which  it  has  been  traced.  As  a  metal- 
liferous deposit  it  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  most 


160 

remarkable  geological  features  of  the  continent 
of  North  America,  running  parallel  to,  and  in 
some  parts  forming  a  portion  of,  th'e  great  ele- 
vated Allegheny  belt. 

The  gold  region  in  Virginia  is  a  singularly 
beautiful  country,  especially  in  a  western  direc- 
tion from  the  town  of  Fredericsburg,  on  the 
Rapahannock  River.  When  the  discovery  of 
this  metal  there  began  to  be  first  talked  of  some 
years  ago,  I  passed  a  great  deal  of  my  time  in 
those  lovely  woodland  districts,  where  the  whole 
country  is  thrown  into  hills  gracefully  rounded 
by  the  action  of  water,  and  where  the  clear 
streams  in  the  valleys  run  through  the  alluvial 
deposits,  consisting  of  the  ruins  of  the  rocks 
which  had  once  united  the  hills  by  a  more  ele- 
vated surface.  With  a  clean  room  to  retire  to 
at  a  settler's  residing  far  in  the  woods,  and 
abundance  of  milk  and  bread,  and  bacon,  and 
lea  and  sugar  to  comfort  myself  with  when  I  re- 
turned at  night  fatigued  with  my  day's  excur- 
sion, the  time  stole  away  most  agreeably  and 
rapidly.  Many  a  time,  when  wandering  by  one 
of  those  murmuring  brooks,  and  listening  to  the 
rich  and  varied  melody  of  the  mocking-bird, 
whose  favourite  breeding-place  is  in  these  groves, 
have  I  dipped  out  the  auriferous  gravel,  washed 
it  in  a  pan  that  I  carried  about  with  me,  and 
thus  collected  in  the  course  of  the  day  native 
gold  of  the  value  of  from  five  to  ten  shillings. 
In  a  few  of  the  streams  the  grains  were  very 
abundant,  and  I  have  known  some  of  those  per- 
sons who  then  began  to  follow  gold-finding  as  an 
occupation,  collect  as  much  as  the  value  of  a 
guinea  or  two  in  the  course  of  a  day. 

Upon  one  occasion  I  visited  an  extensive  allu- 
vial deposit  in  the  county  of  Louisa,  where  great 
success  had  attended  the  operations,  .some  per- 
sons having  unexpectedly  come  upon  an  extra- 
ordinary rich  bed  of  auriferous  gravel,  from 
which  in  six  days  they  extracted  native  gold,  in 
grains,  of  the  value  often  thousand  dollars.  This 
treasure,  when  I  saw  it,  had  a  very  odd  appear- 
ance, for  the  proprietors  had  put  it  into  glass 
bottles ;  it  was  a  large  sum,  and  people  at  a  dis- 
tance were  not  disposed  to  believe  so  much  gold 
had  been  found  there ;  but  there  it  was,  I  saw  it 
weighed,  and  could  entertain  no  doubt  upon  the 
subject.  Soon  after  this  discovery,  the  vein  from 
whence  it  was  derived  was  also  found,  consist- 
ing of  a  pale  pc*ous  quartz,  thickly  studded  with 
knobs  and  lamina  of  native  gold,  and  upon  com- 
paring specimens  of  it — which  I  was  permitted 
to  do— with  the  contents  of  the  bottles,  I  found 
that  man 
res 
was  rounded  and  worn  by  the  action  of  water. 

I  also  visited  another  very  interesting  place. 
Some  children  playing  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  on* 
pulling  up  some  bunches  of  grass,  found  numer- 
ous particles  of  gold  mixed  up  with  the  earth, 
which  inducing  their  father  to  dig  into  it,  he 
came  to  a  very  extensive  pocket  or  cavity,  at 
the  bottom  of  which  was  an  immense  quantity 
of  yellow  earthy  matter  (decomposed  felspar) 
with  pepitas  in  it,  some  of  the  finest  specimens 
of  which  I  purchased  for  my  cabinet.  He  now 
got  two  or  three  hired  negroes  to  assist  him,  and 
this  stuff  was  wheeled  to  the  brook  which  ran  at 
the  foot  of  the  hill  and  washed.  Although  the 
operation  was  conducted  in  a  very  wasteful 
manner,  he  nevertheless  sometimes  obtained 
gold  to  the  amount  of  one  thousand  dollars  in 
the  course  of  the  day.  The  last  time  I  visited 
his  mine  I  was  sorry  to  find  him  under  very 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


at  many  of  the  pepitas,  or  knobs  of  gold,  cor- 
sponded  in  form,  although  the  alluvial  gold 


changed  circumstances,  for  having  extracted  aL 
the  loose  earth  from  the  pocket,  he  had  made  his 
assistants  dig  various  adits  at  random  into  the 
hill  without  propping  the  roofs  up,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  a  ponderous  mass  of  earth  gave 
way  and  killed  one  of  his  hired  negroes,  whose 
full  value  he  was  obliged  to  pay  to  the  proprie- 
tor. This  untoward  event  had  created  a  preju- 
dice against  his  mind,  and,  as  he  told  me,  "  had 
turned  all  the  luck  against  him."  I  found,  how- 
ever, that  the  true  cause  of  the  reverses  which 
overtook  him  was  more  deeply  seated  than  this, 
for  in  his  confidence  in  the  resources  of  the  mine, 
he  had,  a  short  time  before,  purchased  the  fee- 
simple  of  the  place  of  the  owner,  had  paid  him 
on  account  almost  all  the  cash  he  had  obtained 
for  his  gold,  and  had  mortgaged  the  place  for  the 
remainder.  Having  no  ready  money  left,  and 
the  mine  requiring  both  skill  and  capital — nei- 
ther of  which  he  possessed — to  carry  it  on,  the 
mortgagee  took  advantage  of  his  necessity  and 
proceeded  to  foreclose  the  mortgage ;  so  that  he 
was  in  a  likely  way  to  lay  down  his  character 
of  gold-miner  and  go  back  to  his  first  occupation 
of  gold-finder  by  washing  gravel  at  the  brooks. 

The  general  direction  of  the  auriferous  veins 
of  quartz  in  this  part  of  Virginia  is  north-east 
and  south-west — a  fact  which  appears  to  identi- 
fy their  origin  with  that  of  the  great  belt  of  the 
Alleghanies :  they  are  very  numerous,  and  oc- 
cur in  some  places  every  two  or  three  hundred 
yards,  often  branching  out  into  narrow  ramifica- 
tions, and  uniting  again  into  one  vein  from  four 
to  six  feet  broad.  The  veins  go  down  almost 
vertically,  and  upon  being  broken  up  are  gener- 
ally found  loaded  with  ferruginous  matter,  or 
crystals  of  sulphuret  of  iron  containing  thin  la- 
mina of  gold.  Near  the  surface  these  crystals 
are  very  much  decomposed,  and  often  present 
particles  of  gold  lying  free  amongst  a  quantity 
af  oxide  of  iron.  In  some  instances  the  crystal- 
line structure  of  the  pyrites  is  beautifully  ex- 
hibited, the  incipient  decomposition  of  the  crys- 
tal showing  the  complex  laminated  structure  of 
the  interior,  where  bright  lamina  of  native  gold 
are  seen  leaning  against  the  parietes,  with  trans- 
parent crystals  of  sulphur  formed  from  the  de- 
composition of  the  sulphuret.  In  some  instan- 
ces the  veins  of  quartz  contai*  BO  sulphuret  of 
"ron,  but  present,  on  being  fractured,  knobs  and 
particles  of  native  gold,  which  form  a  brilliant 
contrast  to  the  pure  whiteness  of  the  quartz.  In 
almost  every  case,  however,  where  shafts  have 
been  sunk  upon  a  vein,  the  quartzose  matter  de- 
creases in  quantity  as  the  vein  descends,  and  at 
a  mine  in  Orange  County  which  I  visited,  the 
contents  of  the  vein  became  more  and  more  pv- 
ritical  as  it  descended,  until,  at  a  depth  of  120 
feet,  no  more  quartzose  matter  appeared,  and  the 
entire  vein  was  composed  of  a  finely  granulated 
sulphuret  of  iron.  Although  there  are  a  few 
known  localities  in  Virginia  where  the  native 
»old  is  alloyed  with  silver,  and  many  where  tel- 
lurium abounds  in  the  veins,  yet  the  native  gold 
s  generally  very  little  alloyed,  rising  as  high  as 
twenty-three  or  twenty-three  and  a  half  carats, 
vhich  is  gold  nearly  in  its  pure  state. 

Through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Bissel,  an  intel- 
igent  and  experienced  gold-miner,  who  has  su- 
perintended the  operation  of  the  gold-mills  in  the 
vicinity  of  Charlotte,  I  had  an  opportunity  of 
examining  the  ores  of  this  part  of  the  State  of 
North  Carolina.  Those  which  are  now  broken 
at  the  Charlotte  Mills  are  brought  from  a  mine 
at  some  distance  called  Capp's,  which  in  com- 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


161 


pany  with  Mr.  Bissel  I  visited,  and  went  down 
the  shaft  that  has  been  sunk  to  a  depth  of  160 
Feet.  The  quartz  vein  here  was  sheathed  with 
a  case  of  talcose  slate,  and  the  elvan  rocks 
through  which  it  descended,  although  in  some 
places  hard,  were  very  prone  to  decomposition. 
The  gold  was  everywhere  associated  with  iron, 
and  seldom  visible.  Near  to  this  1  saw  an  in- 
stance of  a  flat  vein  or  floor  of  auriferous  quartz, 
•which  seemed  in  its  progress  from  below,  when 
in  a  semiliquid  state,  to  have  poured  itself  out 
right  and  left,  and  to  have  completely  covered 
the  elvan  to  a  considerable  distance.  We  visit- 
ed also  another  vein  which  had  been  opened,  in 
one  part  of  which  specks  of  gold  appeared,  but 
•which  was  very  rich  in  sulphuret  of  copper. 
From  various  copper  ores  which  were  shown  to 
me,  1  imagine  that  that  metal  will  hereafter  be 
found  more  productive  in  North  Carolina  than 
gold.  The  ores  are  unusually  rich,  and  I  think 
will  repay  those  who  at  some  future  day  may 
cause  them  to  be  skilfully  treated.  At  present 
there  seems  to  be  no  information  of  this  kind  in 
the  State.  As  to  gold-mining,  I  do  not  learn  that 
any  person  has  become  enriched  by  it:  it  is  a 
fascinating  pursuit  and  has  attracted  many,  but 
the  average  value  of  the  ore,  as  far  as  I  can 
learn,  does  not  exceed  two  shillings  and  sixpence 
the  bushel  of  lOOlbs. ;  and  whether  such  ore  can 
be  extracted  from  deep  mines,  brought  to  the 
surface,  broken,  triturated,  amalgamated,  and  its 
precious  material  finally  melted  into  bars  of  pure 
gold,  at  a  profit,  is  very  doubtful.  That  some 
localities  may  yield  a  fair  return  for  the  great 
capital  which  gold-mining  involves  is  very  prob- 
able, and  I  have  seen  some  ores  that  would  in- 
spire me  with  confidence;  but  I  should  as  soon 
think  of  purchasing  every  ticket  in  a  lottery  for 
the  sake  of  securing  the  great  prize,  as  of  expend- 
ing capital  in  working  some  of  the  mines  I  have 
visited. 

Having  passed  my  first  day  here  very  agree- 
ably and  instructively,  I  sallied  out  alone  on  the 
next,  and  wandered  around  the  neighbourhood, 
in  many  parts  of  which  are  feldsphatic  rocks 
chequered  with  a  great  number  of  auriferous 
quartz  veins,  whilst  in  particular  areas  talcose 
and  other  slates  are  found  loaded  with  fer- 
ruginous matter.  Wherever  the  ferruginous 
slates  occur  the  soil  is  red,  and  where  the  elvan 
rocks  prevail  it  is  dry,  sandyish,  and  has  a  pale 
arenaceous  colour;  the  colour  and  constitution 
of  the  soil  conspLuously  announcing  the  nature 
of  the  subjacent  rocks.  But  the  most  remark- 
able mineral  which  I  have  seen  in  America, 
both  on  account  of  its  great  beauty  and  its  rarity, 
is  a  singular  felspatbic  dyke  of  a  pale  colour,  of 
the  variety  which  the  Germans  have  named 
Weiss-stein,  but  spotted  with  brown  and  brown- 
ish black  cylindrical  or  oblong  infiltrations,  often 
several  inches  in  length,  and  from  the  size  of  a 
pin's  head  to  half  an  inch  in  diameter.  These, 
in  transversal  sections,  appear  more  or  less  in 
the  form  of  orbicular  spots  in  proportion  as  the 
slabs  are  cut  parallelly  to  the  horizontal  rifts  in 
the  rock,  and  somewhat  resemble  the  spots  on  a 
leopard's  skin.  They  appear  to  owe  their  origin 
to  infiltrations  of  oxides  of  manganese  and  iron 
in  solution,  and  contain,  as  weir  as  the  mass  in 
which  they  are  enclosed,  minute  double  six-sided 
pyramids  of  quartz,  and  small  reddish  particles, 
probably  of  the  garnet  kind.*  There  is  also  an- 


*  I  brought  a  magnificent  specimen  of  this  rock  to  Eng- 
land in  1839,  weighing  about  SOOlbs. ;  and  my  friend  Dr. 
X 


other  variety  in  the  same  dyke,  perhaps  not  less 
beautiful,  where  the  infiltrations  have  uniformly 
taken  the  dendritic  form.  The  dyke  is  very  ex- 
tensive, and  is  a  short  half-hour's  walk  from  the 
village  of  Charlotte. 

At  midnight  on  the  26th,  we  got  again  into  the 
stage  and  drove  to  a  small  place  called  Lexing- 
ton to  breakfast,  passing  through  the  town  of 
Salisbury  and  crossing  the  Yadkin  River<on  our 
way.  This  part  of  the  United  States,  like  many 
other  mineral  regions,  is  not  particularly  fertile: 
some  pretty  situations  occur  nere  and  there,  but 
the  country  is  often  barren  and  has  a  homely 
appearance  compared  with  parts  of  the  Gold 
Region  in  Virginia.  The  settlers  in  this  part 
of  North  Carolina  seem  to  be  a  quiet  old-fashion- 
ed people,  contented  with  little,  and  not  at  all 
disposed  to  trouble  themselves  with  the  mania 
of  internal  improvements,  or  even  to  practice 
any  but  the  most  primitive  methods  of  preparing 
their  food.  The  richest  lands  in  the  State  lie 
more  towards  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  upon  the 
margins  of  some  of  the  rivers ;  but  I  have  always 
heard  that  they  are  exceedingly  unhealthy,  and 
should  suppose  so  from  the  sallow,  languid  ap- 
pearance of  the  people  I  have  occasionally  seea 
from  that  quarter. 

At  Lexington  I  heard  of  some  bituminous  coal 
that  lay  to  the  south  on  Deep  River,  and  should 
have  visited  the  locality  if  I  could  have  procured 
a  conveyance  there.  I  determined,  however,  to 
revisit  the  coal-field  of  Chesterfield  in  Virginia, 
with  which  it  is  not  improbable  it  may  have  a 
geological  connection.  From  Lexington  we 
went  to  Greensborough,  and  thence  to  Danville 
upon  the  River  Dan,  one  of  the  head  branches 
of  the  Roanoke  River. 

Here  we  crossed  into  the  State  of  Virginia, 
but  being  in  the  early  part  of  the  morning  the 
circumstance  was  not  adverted  to,  until,  about 
daylight,  stopping  at  a  tavern  to  change  horses 
and  breakfast,  and  coming  into  the  room  from 
the  well,  I  was  so  exceedingly  surprised  at  see- 
ing on  the  table  a  great  variety  of  beautiful-look- 
ing bread,  made  both  from  fine  wheaten  flower 
and  Indian  corn,  that  I  exclaimed,  "  Bless  me, 
we  must  be  in  Virginia!"  The  mistress  of  the 
house  laughed  when  I  explained  to  her  that  I 
had  not  seen  any  good  bread  since  I  left  New 
Orleans,  and  that  I  knew  I  must  be  in  Virginia 
as  soon  as  I  saw  that  npon  her  table.  This  is 
strictly  true  of  Virginia  bread,  which  is  made  up 
into  so  many  forms,  and  is  so  white,  and  light, 
and  excellent,  that  it  is  impossible,  with  the  aid 
of  the  good  milk  to  be  found  in  almost  every 
house,  to  make  a  bad  repast. 

These  parts  of  Virginia,  like  the  correspond- 
ing midland  countries  of  North  Carolina,  are 
rather  barren,  and  consequently  are  poorly  set- 
tled. We  passed  no  village  of  any  consequence 
until  we  reached  Cartersville,  on  James  River, 
a  poor  woe-begone  place  named  after  one  of  the 
old  distinguished  families  of  Virginia.  On  our 
way  here  I  observed  nothing  in  all  the  ravines 
we  passed — for  there  the  strata  are  usually  laid 
bare — but  the  usual  primary  rocks  that  occupy 
the  area  lying  between  the  tide  waters  of  the 
Atlantic  and  the  mountains.  Gneiss,  traversed 
by  broad  granitic  veins,  hornblende  slates,  sien- 
itic  rocks,  in  many  beautiful  varieties,  were 
constantly  alternating  with  each  other. 


Buckland  pronouncing  it  an  unique,  I  presented  it  to  the 
British  Museum,  -where,  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Kooig, 
it  has  been  made  into  two  very  remarkable  tablets. 


162 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


At  Cartersville  I  succeeded  in  making  an  ar- 
rangement which  enabled  me  to  deviate  from  the 
mail-stage  route  and  get  to  Richmond,  the  capi- 
tal of  the  State  of  Virginia.  The  upper  part  of 
this  town  is  advantageously  situated  upon  a  hill 
which  commands  a  fine  view  of  the  James  River 
and  the  adjacent  country,  a  circumstance  which 
forms  some  analogy  to  the  situation  of  Rieh- 
mond-on-Thames  in  England,  and  has  suggested 
the  name  it  bears.  A  few  pretty  situations,  and 
cheerful  villa-looking  houses  built  in  this  quar- 
ter, make  at  first  a  favourable  impression  upon 
travellers;  but  the  lower  town,  which  swarms 
with  negro  coal-heavers,  is  about  one  of  the  dirt- 
iest places  in  America.  Being  at  the  head  of 
tide-water  navigation — which  terminates  here  at 
the  Falls,  where  the  stream  breaks  so  beautifully 
over  the  primary  rocks — some  fossiliferous  de- 
posits of  considerable  extent  are  found  on  the 
banks  of  the  river.  The  hill  upon  which  the 
court-house  stands  seems  to  be  formed  of  a  con- 
geries of  minute  fossils  and  casts  of  mollusca; 
but  of  these,  and  the  extensive  tertiary  and  sub- 
cretaceous  beds  farther  down  James  River, 
which  were  visited  by  me  in  1832,  1833,  I  defer 
saying  anything  at  present,  being  desirous  of 
confining  my  attention  exclusively  to  the  coal- 
deposits  that  lie  between  the  tide-water  districts 
and  the  Alleghanies,  of  which  those  in  the  Rich- 
mond district  have  been  regularly  worked,  and 
which  disclose  phenomena  deserving  the  notice 
of  geologists.* 

I  had  already,  when  visiting  my  friends  in  the 
year  1832,  in  this  part  of  Virginia,  traced  the 
out-croppings  of  the  coal  veins  in  the  Richmond 
district  at  various  points,  lying  from  north-east 
to  south-west,  a  course  which  seems  to  be  in 
harmony  with  the  magnetic  direction  of  the 
principal  mineral  phenomena  on  this  continent. 
The  Appomattox  River,  which  empties  into 
James  River  a  few  miles  below  Petersburg,  ap- 
peared to  be  its  limit  to  the  south ;  and  the  out- 
crops had  not  been  traced  farther  to  the  north 
than  the  country  betwixt  the  heads  of  the  Chick- 
ahominy  and  the  Pamunkey  rivers,  giving  an 
apparent  length  to  this  coal-field  of  about  thir- 
ty miles.  Of  its  breadth  the.  indications  were 
more  imperfect,  and  consisted  principally  in  the 
difference  of  character  betwixt  the  sedimentary 
grits  and  shales  lying  on  the  surface  of  the 
ground,  and  the  soil  derived  from  the  decom- 
posed primary  rocks  of  the  surrounding  coun- 
try: it  probably,  however,  has  a  maximum 
breadth  of  fifteen  miles.  As  to  the  depth  of  the 
basin,  it  of  course  varies  with  the  conformation 
of  its  granitic  bottom  and  sides.  In  Mr.  Heath's 
Maidenhead  mine,  the  coal  is  taken  from  a 
magnificent  seam  near  thirty  feet  thick,  at  a  depth 
of  about  400  feet;  and  in  other  places  the  work- 
ings are  carried  on  at  a  depth  of  even  600  feet. 
The  shafts  which  have  been  sunk  are  at  some 
distance  from  the  outcrop,  and  are  carried  down 
upon  calculations  proper  to  intersect  the  veins 
and  cut  them  out  advantageously. 

I  believe  I  was  the  first  to  notice — in  a  com- 
munication to  the  Geological  Society  of  London 
in  1828 — that  there  was  an  apparent  deficiency 
in  North  America  of  twenty  one  important  stra". 


*  I  would  refer  those  who  are  desirous  of  seeing  many  ! 
interesting  details  of  this  coal-field  presented  in  a  faithful  j 
and  instructive  manner,  to  an  able  paper  on  the  subject  by 
Mr.  Richard  C.  Taylor,  in  "  Transactions  of  the  Geological 
Society  of  Pennsylvania,"  vol.  i.,  1835.  The  great  experi-  | 
ence  and  mature  judgment  of  that  contleman,  in  matters  re- 
lating to  the  structure  of  coal-fields,  are  highly  appreciated 
both  in  Europe  and  America. 


ta  of  European  rocks,  estimated  to  contain  a  ge- 
ological thickness  of  upwards  of  5000  feet,  com- 
prehending all  the  beds  from  the  Exeter  red  con- 
glomerate, to  the  Weald  clay,  both  inclusive, 
and  that,  consequently,  the  coal  measures  came 
at  once  to  the  surface ;  as  in  the  instances  on 
the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  above  Cumberland, 
where  the  broad  seams  of  bituminous  coal  lie 
exposed  in  the  sides  of  the  hills  far  above  the 
level  of  the  river;  on  the  Ohio,  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Pittsburg;  0*1  the  Mononghahela ;  on 
the  Kentucky  River;  and  in  many  other  situa- 
tions. In  all  these  localities  the  coal-fields  con- 
form to  their  place  in  the  geological  series  of 
rocks  belonging  to  England,  having  sedimentary 
strata  beneath  them.  But  in  the  Richmond  dis- 
trict, where  the  country  is  level,  and  the  coal 
comes  equally  to  the  surface,  the  mineral  being 
found  at  great  depths,  with  no  sedimentary  beds 
beneath  it,  is  consequently  in  an  extensive  basin 
or  chasm  of  primary  rocks.  And  such  is  proved 
to  be  the  case  upon  an  examination  of  the  rocks 
through  which  the  shafts  are  sunk,  and  those  upon 
which  the  whole  contents  of  the  basin  repose. 

By  the  kind  attentions  of  Mr.  Heath,  I  re- 
ceived every  facility  for  the  examination  of  his 
coal-works,  and  a  list  of  all  the  beds  overlying 
the  coal.  Specimens  of  these  were  also  given 
me,  consisting  of  sandstones  exceedingly  mica- 
ceous, of  sandy  grits,  of  carbonaceous  and  argil- 
laceous shales  of  various  colours  more  or  less 
conglomerated,  and  of  every  variety  of  sedimen- 
tary matter  derived  from  the  destruction  of  the 
older  rocks,  including  fragments  of  crystals  of 
felspar.  The  coal  itself  lies  upon  a  coarse  gran- 
ite of  the  porphyritic  kind,  containing  great 
quantities  of  red  crystals  of  felspar,  resembling 
the  Shapfell  granite  in  England.  That  the  bot- 
tom of  this  basin  is  of  a  rugged  character,  is  ev- 
ident from  the  fact  of  huge  knobs  of  the  granite 
frequently  protruding  themselves  above  the  coal, 
which  lies  betwixt  these  knobs  in  such  thick 
masses  as  to  induce  an  opinion  that  at  some  time 
or  other  it  has  been  in  a  pasty  or  semi-fluid  state, 
and  has  been  compressed  into  every  cranny  of 
the  chasm  by  the  pressure  of  at  least  400  feet  of 
sedimentary'matter.  All  the  coal  seams  in  the 
basin  which  have  hitherto  been  worked,  compre- 
hending a  thickness  said  to  be  of  from  fifty  to 
sixty  feet,  lie  beneath  this  enormous  weight. 

The  extraordinary  spectacle  which  this  coal 
basin  presents  suggests  many  reflections,  both  in 
regard  to  the  origin  of  that  mineral,  the  ancient 
state  of  the  surface  of  the  earth  in  this  part  of 
North  America,  and  the  period  of  time  requisite 
to  bring  the  basin  into  its  present  condition. 
Some  eminent  geologists  have  entertained  the 
opinion  that  the  vegetable  matter  represented  in 
coal  seams  did  not  grow  where  it  is  found,  but 
that  it  is  a  deposit  derived  from  forest  trees  and 

Slants,  deracinated  by  violent  inundation,  and 
rifted  into  estuaries ;  analogous  to  the  case  of 
the  great  deposit  of  lignite  at  Bovey  Heathfield, 
in  Devonshire,  which  was  probably  removed 
from  the  neighbouring  uplands  of  Dartmoor,  not 
earlier  than  the  conclusion  of  the  tertiary  period; 
or  to  the  case  of  the  great  rafts  on  Red  River, 
which  have  been  described  in  Ihis  tour.  That 
many  deposits  of  coal  may  have  had  an  origin 
of  this  kind  is  probable;  but  I  am  now  more 
than  ever  inclined  to  the  opinion  I  long  ago  ex- 
pressed, that  the  American  coal-fields  are  to  be 
accounted  for  in  a  very  different  manner,  and 
which,  I  think,  is  less  obnoxious  to  the  charge 
of  being  hypothetical.  The  considerations  upon 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


163 


•which  this  theory  is  founded  may  be  thus  stated.* 


*  My  attention  having  been  drawn  away  of  late  years 
from  geological  pursuits,  I  may,  for  aught  I  know  to  the 
contrary,  be  urging  the  refutation  of  the  drifting  theory, 
•when  it  is  no  longer  maintained.  That  was  not  the  case 
certainly  when  I  first  publicly  expressed  my  objections  to  it 
in  1829,  1830.  In  the  year  1829,  when  the  science  of  geol- 
ogy was  regarded  with  very  little  favour  in  the  United 
States,  I  delivered  a  course  of  geological  lectures  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Lyceum  of  Natural 
History,  an  excellent  society,  in  that  city,  conducted  by 
American  gentlemen  of  great  intelligence,  which  had  strug- 
gled with  many  difficulties  in  its  attempt  to  support  the 
cause  of  natural  science.  The  favourable  reception  they 
met  with  induced  me  to  repeat  them  in  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia in  the  year  1830.  The  expensive  canal  system  of 
Pennsylvania  having  been  undertaken  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  anthracite  coal  to  that  city,  I  devoted  one  lecture 
upon  this  last  occasion  exclusively  to  the  subject,  and  took 
a  general  view  of  the  coal  strataof  North  America,  as  far  as 
I  was  then  acquainted  with  them.  These  lectures,  being 
the  first  that  ever  -were  delivered  in  the  United  States  on 
the  science  of  geology,  were  exceedingly  popular :  they 
were  published  immediately  after  their  delivery ;  and  to 
ahow  that  I  have  been  consistent  in  my  opinions,  I  venture 
to  make  the  following  extracts  from  them : — 

"  The  great  carbonaceous  deposits  in  all  parts  of  the 
•world  with  which  we  are  acquainted  appear  to  be,  as  well 
in  Europe  as  in  America,  in  the  same  part  of  the  geological 
series  (these  lectures  were  illustrated  by  Sir  H.  de  la 
Beche's  Synopsis  of  the  order  of  Rocks,  which  had  only  ap- 
peared the  year  before,  and  which  was  exhibited  upon 
these  occasions  on  a  very  large  scale),  and  to  repose  either 
upon  the  conglomerate  grits  and  shales,  or  some  limestones 
of  the  carboniferous  series.  From  the  difference  which  ex- 
ists betwixt  the  quality  of  the  anthracite  and  bituminous 
coals,  and  from  the  manner  in  which  the  first  are  found  em- 
bedded in  the  mountains,  some  persons  in  America  have 
been  led  to  suppose  that  such  coal  was  of  mineral  origin  ; 
fout  no  one  practically  conversant  with  the  structure  of 
these  coal  basins,  or  who  has  attended  to  the  analysis  of 
•coal,  has  been  known  to  express  an  opinion  different  from 
that  universally  entertained  by  men  of  science,  that  coal, 
whether  bituminous  or  non-bituminous,  is  of  vegetable  or- 
igin. The  coal  strata  are  in  fact,  whether  in  the  state  of 
lignite,  anthracite,  or  bituminous  coal,  the  residua  of  vege- 
table bodies  in  various  stages  of  bituminisation,  the  non-bi- 
tuminous state  of  the  aiuhracitic  varieties  being  probably 
due  to  accidental  causes. 

"  The  beginning  and  progress  of  vegetable  creation  has 
been  traced  with  great  felicity  and  beauty  of  reasoning  by 
some  eminent  persons  in  Europe,  amongst  whom  M. 
Adolphe  Brogniart  deserves  to  be  conspicuously  mention- 
ed: to  them  we  owe  the  just  ideas  which  now  prevail  re- 
specting vegetable  life,  from  the  first  dawnings  of  plants  of 
the  simplest  structure,  to  the  solid  monarchs  of  the  forests 
of  our  own  times.  According  to  the  natural  system  of  bot- 
any, plants  are  divided  into  acotyledons  with  lobeless  seeds, 
monocotyledons  with  seeds  having  one  lobe,  and  dicotyle- 
dons with  seeds  of  two  lobes.  The  impressions  of  coal 
plants  found  in  the  rocks  up  to  the  coal  measures  inclusive, 
afford  no  evidence  that  any  plants  but  those  of  the  simplest 
structure  existed  at  that  time  :  all  were  of  the  first  kind, 
or  acotyledonous  ;  and  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  that 
fact  is  that  trees  having  seeds  with  lobes  had  not  l>een  pro- 
duced up  to  that  period,  and  that  their  appearance  was  re- 
served for  a  time  approaching  nearer  to  the  present  order 
of  nature.  We  are  entitled,  therefore,  to  draw  the  legiti- 
mate inference  that  the  coal  beds  of  North  America  are  de- 
rived not  from  such  forest-trees  as  grow  in  our  own  times, 
but  from  the  tropical  vegetation  which  the  high  tempera- 
ture of  the  globe  produced  at  that  period,  and  from  the 
Sphagna  or  Mosses  which  grew  in  the  immense  areas  of  the 
low,  swampy  country  which  represented  America  when 
this  country  first  emerged  from  the  ocean.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  how  progressively  'dry  land'  has  been  redeem- 
ed from  the  ocean'in  every  part  of  the  world,  aud  how,  by 
causes  of  a  providential  character  inherent  in  our  planet,  it 
has  been  gradnally  raised  to  a  height  above  the  water  suffi- 
cient for  the  economical  uses  of  those  destined  to  live  upon 
it.  Amongst  the  instances  of  upheaval  of  the  surface,  may 
lie  conspicuously  named  the  elevation  of  mountain  chains, 
bearing  along  with  them  the  once  horizontal  strata  with 
their  associate  minerals,  and  especially  the  system  of  the 
Great  Belt  of  the  Alleghanies,  which  has  divided  the  car- 
boniferous area  of  the  continent  by  coming  up  in  the  centre 
of  its  axis,  and  leaving  the  upraised  mineral  deprived  of  its 
Jiitumen  by  the  influence  of  the  cause  which  upheaved  the 
chain  itself.  That  such  was  the  modification  of  the  sur- 
face at  that  peculiar  period  we  can  appeal  to  the  highly 
inclined  state  of  the  formations  subjacent  to  the  coal  strata 
fc  very  where,  and  to  the  general  horizontality  of  the  sncceed- 
Jlig  deposits." 


From  the  State  of  Alabama  to  Pictou.  in  Nova 
Scotia,  the  coal-beds,  wilh  some  interruptions, 
can  be  followed,  in  a  north-east  direction,  for 
about  1500  miles;  and  from  Richmond,  in  Vir- 
ginia, to  Rock  River,  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  the,y 
are  continually  crossed  at  right  angles  for  a  dis- 
tance of  about  800  miles.  The  vast  geographi- 
cal extent  of  these  carboniferous  strata  would 
seem  of  itself  to  exclude  the  drifting  theory  ;  the 
objections  to  which  are  increased  by  the  varying 
nature  of  the  mineral,  and  the  manner  in  which 
it  is  brought  to  the  surface,  as  exhibited  upon  the 
transverse  line.  At  Richmond  we  find  the  coal 
bituminous,  and  proceeding  on  that  line  in  a  di- 
rection west-north-west  to  Rock  River,  we  cross 
the  great  Alleghany  belt,  where  the  coal  is  of  the 
anthracite  or  non-bituminous  variety,  and  con- 
forms to  the  rock  strata  in  their  flexures  and 
tilted  state;  but  having  passed  this  belt,  the  stra- 
ta become  horizontal,  and  the  coal  assumes  the 
same  level  position.  Now  these  varieties  of 
coal  found  upon  this  transverse  line  appear  to 
belong  to  the  same  part  of  the  geological  series, 
for  the  mineral  is  always  found  associated  with 
the  same  conglomerate  grit  and  shale,  except  in 
a  few  instances  where  it  lies  upon  other  beds  of 
the  carboniferous  rocks,  and  excepting  the  gran- 
ite basin  in  the  Richmond  district.  No  argu- 
ment, therefore,  can  be  raised  in  favour  of  the 
drifting  theory,  from  the  difference  in  any  of  the 
circumstances  which  separate  the  anthracitic 
and  bituminous  beds,  although  a  fair  inference 
may  be  raised  that  the  anthracite  coal  was  lifted 
out  of  its  horizontal  position  when  the  great  Al- 
leghany belt  was  upheaved,  and  that  its  non-bi- 
tuminous quality  is  owing  to  the  influence  of  the 
calorific  intensity  which  accompanied  that  up- 
heaval. 

The  next  link  in  this  argument  is  the  period 
at  which  this  great  dynamic  action  took  place. 
We  have  before  seen  that  the  entire  oolitic  se- 
ries is  wanting  in  North  America,  and  that,  with 
few  exceptions,  the  coal  formations  are  the  latest 
deposits  there.  Considering,  therefore,  the  high- 
ly inclined  state  of  the  subjacent  formations,  and 
the  horizontality  of  the  succeeding  deposits  in 
every  known  part  of  the  world,  we  cannot  but 
admit  the  accordance  of  these  disturbing  opera- 
tions of  nature  at  the  same  period  in  both  hem- 
ispheres, and  come  to  the  conclusion  that  these 
coal-fields  were  formed  before  the  period  of  the 
oolitic  system,  and,  consequently,  before  mono- 
cotyledonous  plants  or  forest  trees  existed.  From 
these  data,  it  would  appear  more  consistent  with 
the  progressive  simplicity  of  the  providential 
plan  for  enlarging  and  preparing  the  surface  of 
this  planet  for  the  increasing  wants  of  man,  to 
suppose  that,  immediately  preceding  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  Alleghany  belt,  the  American  conti- 
nent had  barely  emerged  from  the  ocean,  and 
was  in  a  general  marecageous  state.  From  the 
common  tropical  character  of  coal  plants,  wher- 
ever found,  we  infer  a  high  degree  of  tempera- 
ture for  the  globe  even  in  the  northern  latitudes, 
and  may  suppose  an  extraordinary  exuberance 
of  growth  in  the  vegetable  bodies  of  that  period. 
The  plants,  therefore,  whose  impression  we  find 
in  the  coal  shales,  may  have  grown  in  the  driest 
parts  of  the  nascent  land;  and  where  great 
swampy  basins  or  depressions  existed,  these,  as 
the  land  gradually  rose,  would  become  partially 
drained,  and  be  subsequently  occupied  with 
sphagna,  or  mosses.  The  causes  which  were  in 
action  at  that  geological  period  are  far  from  be- 
ing understood,  but  we  have  abundant  evidence, 


164 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


in  numerous  parts  of  the  world,  that  portions  of 
the  surface  were  subject  to  frequent  submersion 
and  re-appearance,  becoming  submarine  and 
terrestrial  by  turns,  and  receiving  additional  de- 
posits every  time  they  were  depressed.  In  this 
manner  a  bed  of  sphagnum,  100  feet  deep,  being 
submerged,  would  receive  a  deposit  of  earthy 
matter  that  would  press  it  down ;  and  upon 
coming  to  the  surface  again  its  growth  might  be 
repeated,  and  the  area  be  again  submitted  to 
submersion  and  receive  a  new  sedimentary  de- 
posit. I  have  seen  beds  of  sphagnum  in  North 
America  probed  for  sixty  fqet  without  coming  to 
the  bottom,  all  of  them  connected  with  lakes  or 
ponds  in  a  partial  state  of  desiccation,  and  which, 
if  acted  upon  by  similar  causes,  would  end  in 
the  production  of  similar  phenomena.  This 
probably  was  the  case  with  the  coal  basin  in  the 
Richmond  district,  the  seams  there  being  separ- 
ated by  earthy  deposits,  and  the  basin  itself  at 
length  filled  up  with  near  100  different  beds  of 
sedimentary  matter.  Everything  concurs  to 
prove  that  "these  were  not  deposited  simultane- 
ously, but  that  their  deposition  was  effected  at 
distinct  intervals ;  for  they  are  not  only  frequent- 
ly different  in  their  nature  and  quality,  but  in 
various  seams  of  bituminous  shale,  some  of 
which-are  at  least  100  feet  Jujve  the  coal,  fossil 
coal  plants — of  which  I  ma<'e  an  ample  collec- 
tion— are  found,  of  great  beauty.  The  dynamic 
periods,  then,  must  have  been  succeeded  by  pe- 
riods of  repose  sufficiently  long  to  have  permit- 
ted the  growth  of  equiseta,  catamites,  and  oth- 
er plants,  whose  impressions  are  found  there. 
These  may  have  grown  in  the  shaly  mud  where 
their  impressions  are  now  seen;  but  whether  or 
not,  it  is  impossible  to  escape  the  conclusion 
that  immense  periods  of  time  are  involved  in  the 
structure  of  this  coal-field. 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  utilitarian  consideration 
for  the  United  States  to  have  it  ascertained 
whether  this  coal-field  forms  part  of  a  line  con- 
necting those  carboniferous  localities  lying  far- 
ther to  the  south  in  North  Carolina,  Georgia, 
and  Alabama,  which  run  parallel  with  the  coal 
strata  to  the  west.  Those  in  Alabama  are  well 
known ;  but  of  those  in  Georgia  only  obscure 
indications  have  hitherto  existed.  As  far  as  1 
have  been  able  to  make  myself  acquainted  with 
them,  all  these  coal  strata  trend  in  the  same  mag- 
netic direction  of  N.E.  S.W. ;  and  as  they  are 
all  on  the  east  side  of  the  Alleghany  belt,  it  may 
be  that  hereafter  they  may  be  found  to  be  upon 
the  same  magnetic  line,  and  to  be  contempora- 
neous. If  this  should  be  the  case,  the  coal-fields 
of  North  America  will  exhibit  the  singularly  in 
structive  geological  phenomenon  of  a  carbonif- 
erous area,  1500  miles  long  and  800  miles  broad 
divided  into  two  bituminous  districts  by  an  ele 
vated  belt,  in  which  the  central  part  of  the  coal 
has  lost  its  bitumen  through  the  agency  of  the 
force  which  lifted  it  up. 

Having  finished  my  observations  at  this  place 
I  had  the  happiness  of  rejoining  my  family  the 
evening  of  the  day  of  my  departure  from  Rich- 
mond, after  accomplishing  a  tour  of  at  leas 
3000  miles. 


CONCLUDING  CHAPTER. 

THE  manner  in  which  Mr.  Jefferson  has  been 
alluded  to  in  the  preceding  pages,  may,  perhaps, 
be  deemed  unjustifiable  by  those  who.  unac- 


quainted with  the  details  of  the  life  and  charac- 
ter of  that  celebrated  person,  have  formed  their 
opinions  of  him  either  from  those  who  have  eulo- 
gised him  for  the  conspicuous  part  he  took  in  en- 
couraging his  fellow-countrymen  to  throw  oft 
their  allegiance  to  Great  Britain,  or  from  other 
writers,  who.  in  their  admiration  of  the  talents 
for  which  he  was  distinguished,  have  ranked 
him  amongst  the  most  conspicuous  benefactors 
of  human  liberty.  But,  if  proofs  can  be  adduced 
that  no  one,  in  or  out  of  America,  has  gone  fur- 
ther to.  poison  the  ears  of  men  with  principles 
utterly  subversive  of  the  well-being  of  society, 
he  claims  which  have  been  set  up  for  him  to 
he  gratitude  of  mankind  will  appear  somewhat 
questionable. 

United  as  the  world  is  in  an  unqualified  ad- 
miration of  the  virtues  of  Washington,  it  is  to- 
tally inconsistent  with  the  respect  due  to  the 
memory  of  that  great  man  to  attempt  to  place 
Jefferson,  as  has  lately  been  done,*  upon  a  par- 
allel with  him;  especially  when  evidences  have 
seen  for  some  time  before  it,  which  sufficiently 
prove  that  the  evils  which  have  interrupted  the 
prosperity  of  the  United  States  are  owing  to  a 
ieparture  from  the  precepts  and  the  moral  exam- 
ples of  the  former,  and  that  the  principles  of  Jef- 
ferson have  been  the  direct  cause  of  that  fatal 
deviation.  Injurious  as  these  principles  have 
been  to  America,  the  extent  to  which  they  have 
been  enabled  to  disturb  mankind  can  never  be 
appreciated  until  they  are  stated  in  some  detail ; 
and  as — perhaps  hastily — a  passage  has  been 
rinted  from  the  MS.  journal  whence  this  work 
as  been  taken,  which  it  is  too  late  now  to  recall, 
the  best  justification  for  the  expression  of  an 
opinion  so  hostile  to  the  reputation  of  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson will  be  afforded  by  a  sketch  of  his  career, 
the  facts  of  which  will  be  drawn  from  the  pages 
of  his  very  able  biographer.t 

To  render  the  subject  more  clear  to  those  of 
the  present  generation  who  are  but  imperfectly 
acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  old  British 
colonies,  and  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the 
establishment  of  their  independence,  the  author 
of  this  work  proposes  in  the  first  instance  to  give 
a  slight  review  of  their  condition  introductory  to 
the  period  when  Mr.  Jefferson  bore  so  conspicu- 
ous a  part  in  the  affairs  of  his  country.  A  state- 
ment of  the  principal  causes  which  led  to  a  relax- 
ation of  the  connexion  of  Great  Britain  with 
those  colonies,  and  finally  to  their  separation, 
cannot  but  be  instructive  to  the  lovers  of  our  an- 
cient monarchy,  especially  at  this  time,  when 
other  dependencies  of  the  crown  are  rapidly 
growing  up  into  importance,  and  will  soon  be- 
come so  vitally  interwoven  with  her  power  and 
the  influence  she  exercises  in  preserving  the 
peace  of  the  world,  that  the  importance  of  at- 
taching them  to  her  as  well  by  their  sympathies 
as  by  their  interest,  is  one  of  the  gravest  ques-  , 
tions  for  her  statesmen.  The  descendants  of  our 
common  forefathers  who  colonised  North  Amer- 
ica were  at  all  times,  as  they  are  now,  proud  of 
their  origin  ;  but  the  strength  the  mother  country 
derived  from  that  pride,  was  from  the  first  more 
than  counteracted  by  the  seeds  of  disaffection 
that  were  too  rankly  sown  there,  and  which,  al- 
most unheeded  and  unchecked,  only  waited  to 
be  strong  enough  to  overcome  a  feeling  of  at- 
tachment that  derived  its  support  as  much  from 
that  pride  as  from  affection. 


Statesmen  of  the  Timo  of  George  III.     Third  Series,  pi 
237.     London,  1843. 
1      t  Vide  Professor  Tucker'&Iafe  of  Jefferson.  London,  183T 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


The  original  British  colonists  of  North  Amer- 
ica may  be  divided  into  two  classes, — those  en- 
terprising and  speculative  adventurers  who  went 
to  Virginia  in  pursuit  of  wealth,  and  the  Puri- 
tans, who  left  their  native  country  for  the  sake 
of  enjoying  freedom  of  opinion.  The  southern, 
or  Virginian  colony,  became  in  all  material  cir- 
cumstances a  copy  of  the  mother  country.  Re- 
ligion was  established  "according  to  the  form 
and  discipline  of  the  Church  of  England;"  each 
parish  had  its  glebe  and  parsonage,  and  primo- 
geniture and  entails  were  the  law  of  the  land. 
Indeed,  the  broadest  foundations  appeared  to 
have  been  laid  for  a  loyal  administration  of  the 
province,  if  the  government  at  home,  attending 
carefully  to  the  development  of  its  prosperity, 
had  given  to  those  individuals,  distinguished  for 
their  intelligence  and  the  stake  they  held  there, 
a  just  share  of  the  honours  and  advantages  of 
their  territorial  government. 

This,  however,  was  not  done,  and  the  distinc- 
tions due  to  the  colonial  aristocracy  being  exclu- 
sively lavished  upon  the  needy  hangers-on  of 
the  aristocracy  of  the  mother  country,  the  seeds 
of  disaffection  were  sown,  and  appeared  in  their 
season.  Although  dissatisfaction  was  evinced  on 
this  account  in  Virginia  at  an  early  period,  yet 
the  first  germ  of  American  aversion  to  monar- 
chical government  is  to  be  traced  to  the  Puritans 
•who  settled  the  northern  colony  of  Massachu- 
setts. The  sole  object  for  which  the  leaders  of 
this  class  expatriated  themselves  was  to  be  out 
of  the  reach  of  what  they  deemed  an  intolerable 
spiritual  tyranny;  and  as  the  church  and  the 
temporal  authority  by  which  its  power  was  en- 
forced were  equally  odious  in  their  eyes,  the  love 
of  spiritual  and  political  independence  became 
rooted  in  them.  The  consequent  attachment  to 
democratic  principles  formed  a  permanent  fea- 
ture in  their  religious  and  civil  government,  and 
continued  unabated,  but  dormant,  until  1775,  at 
which  period  they  first  assumed  an  attitude  of 
rebellion  to  the  monarchy  of  England. 

Passing  over  the  colonization  of  other  parts  of 
North  America,  of  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia, 
of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  the  Atlantic 
frontier  of  North  America  became  gradually 
occupied  with  an  enterprising  people,  rejoicing 
in  absolute  freedom  from  all  restraint,  enjoying 
all  the  privileges  of  the  representative  form  of 
government,  and  indulging  from  time  to  time  in 
the  excitements  peculiar  to  colonial  govern- 
ments, derived  from  causes  both  real  and  ima- 
ginary. Although  the  differences  in  religious 
opinion  were  seldom  the  subject  of  open  and  ac- 
tive dissension  amongst  them,  yet  those  also 
were  spreading  at  the  same  time,  sectarianism 
and  democracy  going  hand  in  hand  and  waiting 
their  day. 

Thus  did  these  colonies  grow  in  strength  and 
importance  until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  a  danger  menaced  them  which 
united  the  planters  of  the  South  with  the  hardy 
farmers  and  merchants  of  the  North,  in  defence 
of  their  country. 

France,  at  this  period,  had  drawn  a  military 
cordon  from  duebec,  by  the  way  of  the  lakes 
and  the  rivers  Ohio  and  Mississippi,  to  New 
Orleans,  and  had  encouraged  the  tribes  of  sav- 
age nations  under  her  influence,  to  fall  upon  the 
defenceless  families  that  had  gradually  advanced 
into  the  interior  from  the  coast.  Her  intention 
was  to  subdue  the  British  colonies,  and  her 
preparations  were  of  the  most  formidable  kind. 
This  peril  was  imminent,  and  the  colonies  must 


165 

inevitably  have  succumbed,  but  for  the  protect- 
ing arm  of  the  mother  country.  A  bloody  and 
expensive  war  now  began,  in  which  some  of 
the  colonists  engaged  with  vigour,  but  the  bur- 
den of  the  contest  fell  upon  the  mother  country, 
which  had  to  furnish  troops,  money,  and  arms. 
The  defeat  of  Braddock's  army  in  1755,  a  part 
Of  which  was  saved  by  the  firmness  and  judg- 
ment of  Colonel  Washington,  then  a  loyal  pro- 
vincial officer,  increased  the  general  dismay.* 
But  as  has  so  frequently  occurred  in  our  history, 
upon  those  great  occasions  which  have  called 
forth  the  power  of  Great  Britain,  France  was 
attacked  when  she  least  expefted  it,  at  the  very 
seat  of  her  colonial  strength,  and  the  immortal 
victory  of  the  plains  of  Abraham,  so  dearly  pur- 
chased by  the  life  of  Wolfe,  was  followed  by  the 
peace  of  1763,  and  the  abandonment  by  France 
of  all  her  possessions  in  North  America. 

This  glorious  termination  of  an  arduous  strug- 
gle, and  the  removal  from  the  colonies  of  every 
apprehension  from  their  powerful  and  dangerous 
neighbour,  was  hailed  at  the  time  as  an  auspi- 
cious event  that  would  consolidate  for  ever  their 
union  with  the  mother  country.  Hard  terms 
had  been  imposed  upon  France  at  that  peace, 
but  the  interest  and  safety  of  the  colonies  appear- 
ed to  require  them.  Few,  or  none,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  triumph  adverted  to  the  fact-thai  in  mor- 
als, as  well  as  in  physics,  extremes  are  ever 
ready  to  meet,  and  that  like  the  pendulum, 
which,  when  it  is  hurrying  to  one  extreme  point 
of  its  oscillation,  is  only  preparing  to  return  to 
the  other,  the  actions  of  men  often  lead  to  results 
diametrically  opposed  to  those  towards  which 
they  seemed  to  be  advancing.  A  striking  proo 
of  this  was  now  about  to  be  given,  and  England 
was  to  receive  an  unexpected  lesson  as  to  the 
policy  of  burdening  herself  with  expensive  wars 
for  the  protection  of  colonies,  the  leading  men 
of  which  she  had  not  propitiated  ;  and  who,  be- 
ing dissatisfied  at  heart  with  the  neglect  they 
had  been  treated  with,  found,  in  their  own  re- 
sources, and  in  their  distance  from  the  mother 
country,  strong  inducements  to  oppose  her  au- 
thority. 

If  at  the  close  of  the  seven  years'  war,  and 
the  subversion  of  the  French  dominion  in  Can- 
ada, the  King's  ministers  had  turned  their  atten- 
tion to  a  reform  in  the  proprietary  governments 
suited  to  the  period,  and  had  conferred  distinc- 
tions upon  the  leading  men  of  the  colonies,  a 
strong  party  would  have  existed  there  in  favour 
of  securing  to  England  some  return  for  the  im- 
portant service  she  had  rendered  them ;  even, 
public  opinion,  which,  in  America,  as  elsewhere, 
is  generally  little  more  than  the  influence  of  em- 
inent individuals  operating  upon  the  masses, 
would  probably  have  concurred  in  its  propriety. 
But  this  was  neglected,  and  the  Stamp  Act,  a 
measure  founded  in  justice  when  we  consider 
the  immense  and  costly  efforts  England  had 
made  for  her  transatlantic  subjects,  was  vainly 
attempted  to  be  forced  upon  them. 

The  historians  who  have  justified  the  resist- 
ance of  the  colonies  to  the  mother  country,  have 


*  Nothing-  contributed  more  to  embolden  the  colonist* 
when  they  subsequently  considered  the  chances  of  being 
able  to  resist  the  authority  of  the  crown,  than  the  circum- 
stances attending  this  disastrous  defeat  of  a  well-appointed 
army,  by  an  ambush  of  French  and  Indians  not  amounting 
to  450  men.  Dr.  Franklin,  alluding  to  it  in  his  autobi- 
ography, says :  "  This  whole  transaction  gave  us  Ameri- 
cans the  first  suspicion  that  our  eta;  ted  ideas  of  the  prow- 
ess of  British  regular  troops  had  not  been  well  founded."— 
'  Memoirs  of  Benjamin  Franklin,'  vol.  i.,  p.  230. 


166 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


not  treated  this  particular  grievance  in  a  very 
ingenuous  manner;  they  have  omitted  to  ex- 
plain that  the  King's  government  had  given  to 
them  the  option  of  contributing  in  any  manner 
they  pleased  a  part  of  the  expenditure  incurred 
on  their  account,  and  that  to  this  they  had  given 
a  most  direct  refusal:  even  Dr.  Franklin,  who 
has  been  considered  by  the  world  as  the  highest 
authority  for  the  facts  connected  with  these  ne- 
gotiations, has  not.  only  stated  that  the  colonies 
were  menaced  with  the  Stamp  Act,  and  that  Mr. 
Grenville  refused  to  permit  any  contribution  to 
come  from  their  "good  will,"  but  in  the  letter 
where  he  professes  to  give  "  the  true  history  of 
that  transaction,"  has  kept  out  of  sight  the  equi- 
table propositions  made  by  Mr.  Grenville  before 
that  Act  was  imposed.*  This  is  an  important 
point  in  the  history  of  the  causes  which  have 
been  alleged  to  justify  the  colonies  in  taking  up 
arms. 

Mr.  Burke,  who  was  agent  for  New- York, 
publicly  denied  in  the  House  of  Commons  that 
an  option  had  been  given ;  but  there  is  a  paper,  in 
the  'Historical  Collections  of  Massachusetts,' 
which  fully  proves  the  fact.  This  paper  was 
written  by  Mr.  Israel  Mauduit,  one  of  the  agents 
for  Massachusetts,  and  at  that  time  an  intimate 
friend  of  Franklin's;  the  original  of  it  is  now  in 
the  possession  of  the  Historical  Society  of  that 
State,  and  is  entitled  '  An  account  of  a  Confer- 
ence between  the  late  Mr.  Grenville  and  the  sev- 
eral Colony  Agents,  in  the  year  1764,  previous  to 
the  passing  the  Stamp  Act.'t  There  is  therefore 


*  "But  this  gentleman  (Mr.  Grenville),  instead  of  a  de- 
cent demand,  sent  them  a  menace  that  they  should  certain- 
ly be  taxed,  and  only  left  them  the  choice  of  the  manner." 

"  But  he  (Mr.  Grenville)  chose  compulsion  rather  than 
persuasion,  and  would  not  receive  from  their  good  will 
what  he  thought  he  could  obtain  without  it."— Letter  from 
Dr.  Franklin  to  Wm.  Alexander,  Esq. ;  Life  of  Franklin, 
vol.  i.,  p.  324.  London,  1818. 

t  This  paper  appears  to  have  been  written  in  consequence 
of  Mr.  Burke's  speech,  and  the  following  is  an  extract  from 
it:— 

"  I  shall  give  a  plain  narration  of  facts  which  fell  within 
my  own  knowledge,  and  which,  therefore,  I  think  it  a  debt, 
due  from  me  to  Mr.  Grenville's  memory,  to  relate.  In  the 
beginning  of  March,  1764,  a  number  of  resolutions,  relative 
to  the  plantation  trade,  were  proposed  by  Mr.  Grenville,  and 
passed  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

"  The  fifteenth  of  these  was,  '  That,  towards  the  further 
defraying  the  said  expenses,  it  may  be  proper  to  charge  cer- 
tain stamp  duties  in  the  said  colonies  and  plantations.' 

"  The  other  resolutions  were  formed  into  the  Plantation 
Act ;  but  the  fifteenth  was  put  off  till  the  next  session,  Mr. 
Grenville  declaring  that  he  was  willing  to  give  time  to  con- 
sider of  it,  and  to  make  their  option  of  raising  that,  or  some 
other  tax.  The  agents  waited  separately  on  Grenville  upon 
this  matter,  and  wrote  to  their  several  colonies.  At  the  end 
of  the  session  we  went  to  him,  all  of  us  together,  to  know 
if  he  still  intended  to  bring  in  such  a  bill.  He  answered, 
he  did  ;  and  then  repeated  to  us  in  form,  what  I  had  before 
heard  him  say  in  private,  and  in  the  House  of  Commons : 
'that  the  late  war  had  found  us  seventy  milloins,  and  left 
us  more  than  one  hundred  and  forty  millions  in  debt.  He 
knew  that  all  men  wished  not  to  be  taxed  ;  but  that  in  these 
unhappy  circumstances,  it  was  his  duty,  as  a  steward  for 
the  public,  to  make  use  of  every  just  means  of  improving 
the  public  revenue :  that  he  never  meant,  however,  to 
charge  the  colonies  with  any  part  of  the  interest  of  the  na- 
tional debt.  But,  besides  that  public  debt,  the  nation  .had 
incurred  a  great  annual  expense  in  the  maintaining  of  the 
several  new  conquests  which  we  had  made  during  the  war, 
and  by  which  the  colonies  were  so  much  benefited.  That  the 
American  civil  and  military  establishment,  after  the  peace 
of  Aix  la  Chapelle,  was  only  70,OOOZ.  per  annum.  It  was 
now  increased  to  350,0002.  This  was  a  great  additional 
expense  upon  an  American  account ;  and  he  thought,  there- 
fore, that  America  ought  to  contribute  towards  it.  He  did 
not  expe.ct  that  the.  colonies  should  raise  the  whole,  but  some 
part  of  it  he  thought  they  ought  to  laise,  and  this  stamp 
duty  was  intended  for  that  purpose.  , 

"  '  That  he  judged  this  method  ot  raising  the  money  the 
easiest  and  most  equitable  ;  that  it  was  a  tax  which  would 
fall  only  upon  property,  would  be  collected  by  the  fewest 


no  room  left  for  a  doubt  that  the  colonies  had 
every  opportunity  afforded  them  of  choosing 
their  own  manner  of  discharging  a  debt,  the  jus- 
tice of  which  could  not  be  denied,  and  which,  if 
they  had  consented  to  its  being  the  subject  of  a 
negotiation,  would  most  probably  have  been  re- 
duced to  an  equitable  amount,  susceptible  of  a 
very  easy  liquidation. 

The  Stamp  Act  having  no  friends  in  America, 
was  the  signal  for  insurrection  secretly  fomented 
by  those  who  had  been  neglected;  and  the  spirit 
of  disaffection  was  fostered  by  the  vacillatory 
policy  of  the  King's  ministers.  Relieved  from 
their  apprehensions  of  French  conquest,  and  con- 
scious of  their  strength,  the  colonies  now  formed 
plans  for  turning  against  the  mother  country  the 
energies  which  had  been  awakened  in  them  by 
their  late  dangers ;  and  from  the  passing  of  the 
Stamp  Act  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion, 
the  misunderstanding  increased.  All  the  kind 
feelings  which  the  protection  given  to  the  colo- 
nies had  produced  were  effaced ;  every  measure 
that  appeared  to  promote  British  commercial  in- 
terests was  resisted,  and  the  whole  energies  of 
America  becoming  at  length  directed  against  the 
Crown,  France,  which  had  so  many  motives  for 
crippling  the  power  of  England,  and  which  had 
never  pardoned  her  the  hard  terms  she  had  re- 
ceived at  the  peace  of  1763,  united  her  arms  to 
those  of  America,  and  the  independence  of  the 
colonies  was  accomplished. 

England  retired  from  the  scene  of  her  disasters 
with  at  least  some  consolation.  She  had  laid  the 
broad  foundation  of  a  nation  gifted  with  her  own 
courage,  intelligence,  and  enterprise;  and  al- 
though it  was  severed  from  her  dominion,  men 
of  experience  soon  began  to  see  that  the  future 
commercial  intercourse  with  the  United  States 


officers,  and  would  be  equally  spread  over  America  and  the 
West  Indies,  so  that  all  would  bear  their  share  of  the  pub- 
lic burthen.'  He  then  went  on :  '  I  am  not,  however,  set 
upon  this  tax.  If  the  Americans  dislike  it,  and  prefer  any 
other  method  of  raising  the  money  themselves,  I  shall  be 
content.  Write  therefore  to  your  several  colonies,  and  if 
they  choose  any  other  mode,  I  shall  be  satisfied,  provided  the 
money  be  but  raised.'  Upon  reading  over  this  narration  with 
Mr.  Montagu,  who  was  then  agent  for  Virginia,  and  pres- 
ent at  this  conference  with  Mr.  Grenville,  I  have  his  au- 
thority to  say  that  he  entirely  assents  to  every  particular. 
All  these  particulars  I  had  before  heard  from  Mr.  Grenville, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  at  his  own  house  ;  and  had 
wrote  to  the  Massachusetts  Assembly  accordingly. 

"The  following  extracts  contain  their  answer  on  this 
head  :— 

"  '  SIR,  Boston,  June,  14,  1764. 

"  'The  House  of  Representatives  has  received  your  sev- 
eral letters. 

"  '  The  actual  laying-  the  stamp  duty,  you  say,  is  deferred 
till  next  year,  Mr.  Grenville  being  willing-  to  give  the  prov- 
inces their  option  to  raise  that,  or  some  equivalent  tax,  de- 
sirous, as  he  was  pleased  to  express  himself,  to  consult  the 
ease  and  quiet,  and  the  good  will  of  the  colonies. 

"  '  If  the  ease,  the  quiet,  and  the  good  will  of  the  colo- 
nies are  of  any  importance  to  Great  Britain,  no  measures 
could  be  hit  upon  that  have  a  more  natural  and  direct  ten- 
dency to  enervate  those  principles  than  the  resolutions  you 
enclosed. 

"  '  The  kind  offer  of  suspending  the  stamp  duty  in  the 
manner,  and  upon  the  condition,  you  mention,  amounts  to 
no  more  than  this,  that  if  the  colonies  will  not  tax  them- 
selves as  they  may  be  directed,  the  Parliament  will  tax 
them. 

"  '  You  are  to  remonstrate  against  these  measures,  and, 
if  possible,  to  obtain  n.  repeal  of  the  Sugar  Act,  and  prevent 
the  imposition  of  any  further  duties  or  taxes  on  the  colonies. 
Measures  will  be  taken  that  you  may  be  joined  by  all  the 
other  agents.' 

•'  One  of  those  measures  was  the  printing  this  letter,  and 
sending  it  to  the  other  colony  assemblies. 

"  After  their  own  express  acknowledgment,  therefore, 
10  one,  I  suppose,  will  doubt  but  they  had  the  offer  of  rais- 
ng  the  money  themselves,  and  that  they  refused  it,  which 
s  all  that  I  am  concerned  to  prove." — Historical  Collections 
)/  Massachusetts,  vol.  ix.  p.  268. 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


167 


would  be  more  advantageous  to  the  mother  coun- 
try than  it  could  have  been  if  they  had  remained 
in  a  colonial  state.  But  that  which  gave  the 
greatest  satisfaction  to  all  men  of  reflection  sub- 
sequent to  the  establishment  of  this  new  govern- 
ment amongst  the  nations  of  the  earth  was,  that 
the  young  republic  was  to  be  organised  under 
the  influence  of  the  man  whose  conduct,  during 
the  struggle  and  after  its  termination,  had  raised 
him  to  the  highest  renown  wherever  civilization 
existed;  for  never  had  there  been  an  instance  in 
history  where  the  private  and  public  virtues  of 
a  chie'f  had  seemed  to  give  a  more  certain  guar- 
antee to  the  world  for  the  future  character  of  a 
people,  in  the  first  days  of  their  national  exist- 
ence, than  those  which  had  illustrated  the  career 
of  George  Washington. 

But  whilst  so  glorious  a  future  was  open  to 
the  United  States  under  his  guidance,  and  as  if 
a  good  and  evil  principle  must  be  always  con- 
flicting, it  was  their  misfonune  to  possess  anoth- 
er man  eminent  for  his  qualifications,  and  for 
the  influence  they  had  given  him  over  a  great 
portion  of  his  countrymen;  one,  however,  who 
had  cherished  from  his  youlh  upwards,  what 
are  now  called  revolutionary  views  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  liberty.  Perhaps  the  most  interest- 
ing truth  which  history  reveals  to  us,  is  that  that 
degree  of  national  freedom  which  unites  good 
men  in  the  preservation  of  life,  property,  and  or- 
der, is  inherent  to  the  calm  and  regular  progress 
of  society,  and  cannot  be  forced  onwards  by  the- 
oretical impulses.  Mr.  Jefferson  thought  other- 
wise; hi*  maxim  wasTiot  to  assist  the  natural 
growth,  and  train  and  guide  what  he  had  found 
planted  by  the  wisdom  of  other  times;  but  whilst 
he  rooted  up  what  already  existed,  to  bring  for- 
ward new  and  experimental  varieties,  suited  to 
the  tastes  of  theoretical  reformers  and  superfi- 
cial philosophers. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  born  in  Virginia  in  1743,  a 
period  at  which  the  colonists  there  looked  exclu- 
sively to  the  mother  country  as  their  model.  The 
church  of  England  in  that  province  was  not  only 
established  by  law,  each  parish  having  a  cler- 
gyman with  a  fixed  salary,  a  glebe,  and  a  par- 
sonage-house, but  the  eldest  sons  of  the  opulent 
planters  were  usually  sent  to  England  to  receive 
their  education.  Their  tastes  were  thus  formed 
for  English  arts,  literature,  and  politics;  and  as 
the  right  of  primogeniture  existed,  they  natural- 
ly became  the  patrons  of  liberal  pursuits  on  their 
return  to  their  native  country.  Society  in  this 
colony  was  at  that  time  upon  an  excellent  foot- 
ing; the  upper  classes  were  distinguished  from 
the  others  as  much  as  they  were  in  any  other 
country,  and  were  respected  by  the  people. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  who  did  not  belong  to  any  of 
the  old  Virginian  families,  commenced  the  study 
of  the  law  under  one  of  the  most  violent  oppo- 
nents of  the  measures  of  the  crown,  and  at  an 
early  period  took  an  active  and  zealous  part  upon 
every  occasion  when  dissatisfaction  was  to  be 
expressed  with  the  British  government.  In  the 
measures  of  the  colonial  burgesses  and  delegates 
that  led  to  the  final  rupture  with  Lord  Dunmore, 
in  1775,  he  took  a  very  prominent  part;  and  in 
1776  he  retired  from  the  Congress  to  which  he 
had  been  elected,  in  order  to  become  a  member 
of  the  Legislature  of  his  native  State,  where  he 
could  have  a  better  opportunity  of  carrying  out 
his  own  revolutionary  innovations.  His  talents 
and  influence  were  now  universally  recognised, 
and  enabled  him  to  carry  his  measures  against 
the  leading  families  in  the  province,  who  feared 


the  man,  but  had  not  the  courage  to  oppose  him. 
Almost  as  soon  as  he  had  taken  his  seat,  he 
brought  in  a  bill  to  convert  estates  in  tail  into 
fee  simple,  avowing  as  his  reason  that  he  wish- 
ed "to  make  an  opening  for  the  aristocracy  of 
virtue  and  talent."*  In  the  committee  to  which 
this  matter  was  referred,  he  met  with  some  op- 
position, which  he  answered  by  stating, 

"  That  the  eldest  son  could  have  no  claim,  in 
reason,  to  twice  as  much  a^his  brothers  or  sis- 
ters, unless  he  could  eat  twite  as  much]  or  do  double 
work."t 

The  next  step  which  he  took,  and  which  very 
naturally  followed  the  abolition  of  entails,  was 
to  procure  Ihe  destruction  of  the  church  estab- 
lishment, and  to  place  all  religious  sects  ca  the 
same  footing  of  voluntary  contribution.  Vari- 
ous enactments  were  made  for  the  accompplish- 
ment  of  this  measure,  the  first  of  which  suspend- 
ed the  laws  which  provided  salaries  for  the  cler- 
gy: in  1779  these  laws  were  all  unconditionally 
repealed,  and  the  final  enactment  on  church  mat- 
ters authorized  the  overseers  of  the  poor  to  sell 
the  glebe  lands,  as  they  became  vacant. 

Having  accomplished  his  favourite  object  of 
bringing  down  to  the  general  level  all  the  estab- 
lished families  of  his  native  state,  as  well  as  the 
Episcopal  church,  Mr.  Jefferson's  field  of  action 
was  again  transferred  to  the  concerns  of  the  na- 
tion, and  in  1784  he  joined  his  colleague,  Dr. 
Franklin,  at  Paris,  as  joint  minister  to  France. 
After  remaining  there  some  time,  he  paid  a  vis- 
it, in  1786,  to  Mr.  Adams,  the  American  minis- 
ter in  London,  and  was  presented  at  court,  where, 
he  says,  he  was  "ungraciously  received."  If 
we  are  to  judge  from  the  bitterness  of  some  of 
his  expressions  to  his  correspondents,  it  is  prob- 
able he  made  no  secret  of  the  dislike  he  cherish- 
ed to  England.  Speaking  of  the  country,  in  one 
of  these  letters,  he  says : 

"  Her  hatred  is  deep-rooted  and  cordial,  and 
nothing  is  wanting  with  her  but  the  power  to 
wipe  us  and  the  land  we  live  in  out  of  existence."}* 

In  one  of  his  letters,  written  in  1786,  is  the  fol- 
lowing curious  passage,  a  part  of  which  is  re- 
markable for  its  prophetic  character: 

"  American  reputation  in' Europe  is  not  such,  as 
to  be  flattering  to  Us  citizens._  Two  circumstan- 
ces are  particularly  objected  to  us :  the  non-pay- 
ment of  our  debts,  and  the  want  of  energy  in  our 
government.  They  discourage  a  connexion  with  us. 
I  own  it  to  be  my  opinion  that  good  will  arise 
from  the  destruction  of  our  credit."§ 

Upon  another  occasiorrhe  endeavours  to  stim- 
ulate that  national  vanity  and  self-sufficiency 
which  are  often  so  conspicuous  in  young  soun— 
tries,  and  to  cherish  in  his  fellow-citizens  that  iru- 
flated  feeling  of  superiority  over  other  nations, 
which  many  of  them  were  even  then  beginning 
to  attribute  to  their  own,  saying: 

"If  all  the  sovereigns  in  Europe  were  to  set 
themselves  to  work  to  emancipate  the  minds  of 
their  subjects  from  their  present  ignorance  and 
prejudices,  a  thousand  years  will  not  place  them 
on  that  high  ground  on  which  our  common  peo- 
ple are  now  setting  out.  Ours  could  not  have 
|  been  so  fairly  placed  under  the  control  of  the 
I  common  sense  of  the  people,  had  they  not  been 
!  separated  from  their  parent  stock,  and  kept  from 
|  contamination,  either  from  them  or  the  other 
people  of  the  old  world,  by  the  intervention  of  so 
wide  an  ocean. "II 


*  Tucker's  Life  of  Jefferson,  vol.  i.,p.  97.  London,  1837. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  112.  J  Ibid.,  p.  218. 

Ubid.,p.231.  II  Ibid.,  p.  240. 


•168 


TRAVELS  IN  AMERICA. 


During  his  residence  in  France,  Mr.  Jefferson 
was  intimately  connected  with  the  leaders  that 
were  preparing  the  French  revolution ;  and  from 
the  following  passage  in  a'letter  respecting  some 
disturbances  in  Massachusetts,  which  he  wrote 
from  Paris  in  1787  to  a  friend,  it  would  seem 
that  all  the  steps  necessary  to  carry  out  the  views 
of  these  men  were  already  familiar  to  his  mind  : 
"What  country  before  ever  existed  a  century 
and  a  half  without  a  rebellion  1  And  what  coun- 
try can  preserve  its  liberties,  if  its  rulers  are  not 
warned  from  time  to  time  that  its  people  preserve 
the  spirit  of  resistance  1  Let  them  take  arms. 
The  remedy  is  to  set  them  right  as  to  facts,  par- 
don and  pacify  them.  What  signify  a  few  lives 
lost  in  a  century  or  two  1  The  tree  of  liberty  must 
be  refreshed,  from  time  to  time,  with  the  blood  of  pa- 
triots and  tyrants.  It  is  its  natural  manure."* 

This  sentiment  has  been  lately  attributed  to 
another  quarter.  Immediately  on  the  Conven- 
tion having  voted  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.  in 
1792,  Barere,  now  justly  esteemed  the  most  infa- 
mous of  all  the  terrorists,  rose  and  addressed  the 
Assembly  in  a  speech  containing  the  following 
passage  :— 

"  The  tree  of  liberty,  as  an  ancient  author  re- 
marks, flourishes  when  it  is  watered  with  the 
blood  of  all  classes  of  tyrants."t 

The  able  author  of  the  article  entitled '  Barere's 
Memoirs,'  in  that  number  of  the  'Edinburgh  Re- 
view' from  which  this  passage  is  taken,  observes, 
in  quoting  it,  "  We  wish  that  a  note  had  been 
added  to  inform  us'  from  what  ancient  author 
Barere  quoted.  In  the  course  of  our  own  small  (!) 
reading  among  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers,  we 
have  not  happened  to  fall  in  with  trees  of  liberty 
and  watering-pots  full  of  blood;  nor  can  we, 
such  is  our  ignorance  of  classical  antiquity,  even 
imagine  an  Attic  or  Roman  orator  employing 
imagery  of  that  sort.  In  plain  words,  when  Ba- 
rfcre  talked  about  an  ancient  author,  he  was  lying, 
as  he  generally  was  when  he  asserted  any  fact, 
great  or  small.  Why  he  lied  on  this  occasion 
we  cannot  guess,  unless,  indeed,  it  was  to  keep 
his  hand  in." 

It  is,  indeed,  evident  enough  that  we  need  not 
go  to  antiquity  for  such  a  sentiment ;  jargon  of 
that  kind  about  the  tree  of  liberty  could  belong  to 
no  author  more  ancient  than  Mr.  Jefferson,  who, 
it  is  to  be  remarked,  at  the  time  he  expressed 
himself  thus,  was  not  a  very  young  enthusiast 
having  already  reached  the  mature  age  of  forty 
four  years.  Barfere,  no  doubt,  veiled  his  authori- 
ty, because  it  was  not*convenient^t»  quote  the 
American  minister. 

In  1789,  when  the  Etats-Generaux  met,  Mr 
Jefferson,  who  still  represented  the  United  States 
drew  up  a  charter  of  rights  for  the  French  peo- 
ple, but,  although  Lafayette  and  others  gave  i 
their  sanction,  it  was  not  adopted. 

What  chance  the  public  creditor  would  have 
under  Mr.  Jefferson's  first  principles  of  govern- 
ment may  be  gathered  from  his  opinions,  as  we 
find  them  recorded  by  his  biographer:} 

"  He  (Mr.  Jefferson}  insists  that  the  use  of  the 
earth  belongs  to  the  living  generation,  and  tha 
the  dead  have  no  more  right  than  they  have  pow- 
er over  it.  In  the  application  of  this  principle 
he  maintains  that  no  generation  can  pledge  or 


Tucker's  Life  of  Jefferson,  vol.  i.,  p.  282.  London 
t  Edinburgh  Review.  April,  1844,  p.  297. 
i  Tucker's  Life  of  Jefferson,  yol.  i.,  p.  324-5. 


encumber  the  lands  of  a  country  oeyond  the  av- 
erage term  of  its  own  existence,  which  term,  by  • 
reference  to  the  annuity  tables  of  Buffon,  he  es- 
timates first  at  thirty-four  years,  and  afterwards 
reduces  to  nineteen  years.  By  reason  of  this  re- 
striction, founded  in  nature  and  the  first  princi- 
ples of  justice,  he  maintains  that  every  law,. and 
even  constitution,  naturally  expires  at  the  expira- 
tion of  this  term ;  and  that  no  public  debt  can  be 
contracted  which  would  be  rightfully  binding  on. 
"he  nation  after  the  same  lapse  of  time." 

This  egregious  argument — which  was  very 
ably  refuted  by  Mr.  Madison,  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Jefferson — is  the  germ  of  that  "first  principle" 
called  "  repudiation,"  which  he  bequeathed  to 
his  country;  a  principle  which,  if  admitted  into 
civilized  life,  would  strike  at  the  root  of  that  nat- 
ural feeling  inherent  in  all  rightly  disposed  com- 
munities, viz.,  to  protect  the  interests  and  wel- 
fare of  that  posterity  of  which  their  own  chil- 
dren form  a  part. 

In  the  year  1794,  Mr.  Jefferson,  at  the  age  of 
56,  left  the  Cabinet  of  President  Washington,  in 
which  his  opinions  found  but  little  support,  and 
retired  to  his  seat  in  the  country,  ostensibly  to 
enjoy  rural  pursuits  and  domestic  happiness. 
Professing  to  despise  distinctions  and  employ- 
ments, he  declared  to  a  friend  that  he  was  so 
weaned  from  public  pursuits  that  he  should 
"never  take  another  newspaper  of  any  sort,"* 
yet  at  this  very  time  his  house  was  not  only  the 
general  rendezvous  of  the  most  active  opponents 
of  Washington's  administration,  and  the  point 
where  all  their  political  measures  were  concert- 
ed,.but  from  thence  Mr.  Jefferson  himself  wrote 
the  bitterest  attacks  for  the  democratic  journals, 
upon  the  administration  of  the  man  to  whom  he 
continued  to  profess  in  public  the  most  devoted 
attachment.  Of  the  philosophic  tone  of  his  mind, 
and  of  the  sincerity  of  his  abandonment  to  rural 
pursuits,  the  following  extract  of  a  letter  to  a 
Mr.  Tench  Coxe,  written  soon  after  he  had 
reached  his  country  seat,  Monticello,  furnishes 
an  admirable  example: 

"  Over  the  foreign  powers,  1  am  convinced 
they  (the  French)  will  triumph  completely,  and 
I  cannot  but  hope  that  that  triumph,  and  the  con- 
sequent disgrace  of  the  invading  tyrants,  is  des- 
tined, in  the  order  of  events,  to  kindle  the  wrath 
of  the  people  of  Europe  against  those  who  have 
dared  to  embroil  them  in  such  wickedness,  and 
to  bring,  at  length,  kings,  nobles,  and  priests,  to  the 
scaffolds,  which  they  have  been  so  long  deluging  with 
human  blood.  I  am  still  warm  whenever  I  think  of 
these  scoundrels"^ 

With  this  example  and  these"  precepts  before 
us,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  having  suc- 
ceeded in  weaning  a  majority  of  the  people  from 
their  confidence  in  Washington's  principles  of 
government,  he  should  at  length  have  achieved 
his  object  of  being  raised  to  the  supreme  power; 
and  that  his  opinions  so  largely  sown  in  the 
minds  of  a  great  portion  of  his  countrymen, 
should  have  produced  in  them  a  scornful  con- 
tempt of  all  the  regular  governments  of  Europe, 
the  proscription  of  the  most  respectable  of  their 
own  countrymen,  and  the  accomplishment  at 
length  of  those  fatal  acts  which  are  at  this  day 
so  injurious  to  the  honour  and  character  of  Re- 
publican America. 


*  Tucker's  Life  of  Jefferson,  rol.  i.,  p.  528.  London,  1 
•  t  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  532. 


,T 


ll± 

p 

*sm 


£-  V 


i^ 

H 

<rji]D 


A>M-U!-' 
UJ1 


^aoj 


**»*" 
^1 

^w 


i 


^     t 


^f-LIBRARYQc 


University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 

Phone  Renewals 


^ 


. 


T^s 

OJO*- 

™% 

§ 


1  tr"  1 


i 


g     fif 


AA    000694291    6 


TI 

§     £ 


?  5 


*      & 

§       £ 

3i-  < 


1 

1 


S        * 


V4-        ^ 
g      § 


g     S 


S   i 


s  i 


1     s 

g      > 

i    S 


i  r 


»    s 
^?    "i 


^M'NIVER^       ^10 
-^     §/• 


§     I 
I     S 


I       I 

03  > 


2-  « 

K      £5 


Univerj 

Soutj 

Libi 


